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Ibfstorfcal /HMscellan^ 

ited by Earle W. Dow, University of Michigan 



THE FEUDAL REGIME 



CHARLES SEIGNOBOS 

^tkt Univtrtitjf ^ FarU 



TRANSLATION EDITED BV 

EARLE W. DOW 

Junior Professor in the University o/MichtgcM 



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NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 



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Iblstorfcal /iDiscellani? 

Edited by Earle W. Dow, University of Michigan 

THE FEUDAL REGIME 



CHARLES SEIGNOBOS 

^ th« University tf/ J^atit 



TRANSLATION EDITED BV 

EARLE W. DOW 

funioi fro/essor in the University of Michigan 




NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 






Copyright, 1902, 

BY 

Hbnry Holt & Co. 






CONTENTS 

PAGB 

INTRODUCTION •.,,... i 

I. THE PEASANTS 3 

II. THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 27 

III. USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 54 



NOTE 

This account of the feudal regime forms the first chapter 
in the second volume of the Histoire Generate du IV' Steele a 
nos Jours, edited by MM. Lavisse and Rambaud. It is now 
done into English, with the idea that as a short description of 
the social organization prevailing in Europe from the tenth to '^'^ ' 
the thirteenth century it may approve itself as widely among 
us as it has in France. It is hoped not only that it may be 
useful as collateral reading for classes in history, for which it 
seems peculiarly fitted, but also that it may be of interest to 
general readers. If it meets with sufficient favor, it is pur- 
posed to issue similar monographs on other subjects. 

Now and then, a note of no special importance has been 
dropped; a passage has been rendered rather freely; or an 
explanation, enclosed in brackets, has been added by the editor. 
Often, also, the paragraphing has been modified, out of respect 
for English usage. Otherwise, however, the original is 
unchanged in the translation. 

The editor is deeply indebted to Mr. Christian Gauss, of 
Lehigh University, for extensive aid in the translating, and 
also to his colleague, Mr. Victor Fran9ois. He relieves them, 
though, of all responsibility for errors. 






THE FEUDAL REGIME 

FROM ITS BEGINNINGS TO THE END OF THE 
THIRTEEN! H CENTURY 

The countries that made up the empire of Charlemagne 
underwent during the tenth century a profound transformation, 
the details of which, from lack of documents, are unknown to 
us. When it begins to grow light again, toward the end of 
the eleventh century, society and government both appear 
transformed. To the new organization historians have given 
the n'cimc feudal regime. Coming into existence in the obscure 
period that followed the dissolution of the Carolingian empire, 
this regime developed slowly, without the intervention of a 
government, without the aid of a written law, without any 
general understanding among individuals; rather only by a 
gradual transformation of customs, which took place sooner 
or later, but in about the same way, • in France, Italy, 
Christian Spain, and Germany. Then, toward the end of the 
eleventh century, it was transplanted into England and into 
southern Italy, in the twelfth and thirteenth into the Latin 
states of the East, and beginning with the fourteenth into 
the Scandinavian countries. 

This regime, established thus not according to a general 
plan but by a sort of natural growth, never had forms and 
usages that were everywhere the same. It is impossible 
to gather it up into a perfectly exact picture, or indeed to 
make any general statement about it which would not be 
in contradiction to several particular cases. And so no 
scholar has risked publishing a study of the feudal regime 
in its entirety. All that can be attempted for the present is 



2 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

to bring together the most common characteristics of the 
society and the usages in feudal countries, from the tenth to 
the thirteenth century. 

Three usages, common to all of Charlemagne's empire, 
dominated and moulded society: the owning of large domains; 
the obligation of lay owners to equip themselves and wage 
war at their own expense ; and the position of the clergy as 
owners. Society had come to be divided into two classes: 
the mass of peasants established on the great domains; and 
the aristocracy, possessors of the soil, made up of two cate- 
gories: warriors and churchmen.^ 

^ The inhabitants of the towns (bourgeois) formed, from the end of the eleventh 
century, a distinct class, intermediate between the peasants and the nobles. But 
the towns came after the establishment of the feudal regime and even aided in 
destroying it. It is possible, then, to except them. 



THE PEASANTS 

The Great Domains. — Beginning with the ninth century 
there remained in the Carolingian empire scarcely any small 
owners cultivating their land themselves, save perhaps in the 
outskirts of the cities of the south and in some remote regions 
of the mountains or of the coasts. Almost all the land 
belonged to large owners who did not work with their hands. 
As it had little value, it was divided into domains of larger 
area than what we to-day call a great estate, comparable only 
to the domains of Russian lords before the abolition of serfdom 
or to plantations in the United States in the time of the negro 
slaves. A domain extended over the territory of a village of 
the present day. Most of the communes of France are but 
ancient domains, and many of them have kept the old name; 
like Clichy, Palaiseau, Issy, Ivry. 

The land in each domain was divided into two parts, of 
unequal extent. The smaller, ordinarily the land near the 
master's house, formed the reserve which the owner kept to 
exploit directly for his own profit; this was the master's 
land {indominicata). What it produced belonged to the 
owner. There stood the master's house, where the owner 
lived, or at least his intendant. The rest of the land was 
distributed among a certain number of peasant families estab- 
lished on the domain. Most frequently they lived in cottages 
grouped around the master's house, thus forming a' village. 
Each family, from father to son, cultivated the same allotment 
of land, which ordinarily was made up of several small parcels 
scattered over the whole extent of the domain. The peasants 
kept the products of the field; but, in exchange, they owed 
dues and services to the owner and lived in dependence upon 

3 



4 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

him. These dues and services varied infinitely, in accordance 
with agreements made at the outset or with the custom of the 
country; no law regulated the charges which the landlord 
could impose upon his peasants or the amount of land that he 
should give them. But the conditions of life, which were 
very uniform, had produced almost everywhere very analogous 
regimes. 

This organization appears already in the register of the 
abbey of Saint-Germain des Pres, drawn up at the end of the 
reign of Charlemagne. Each domain has a chapter, in which 
are enumerated, first, the reserve of the master, with the 
harvest; then the peasants, their families, the extent of their 
holdings, their dues and their corvees. Here, for example, is 
the domain of Palaiseau: " At Palaiseau there is a master's 
reserve, with a house and other necessary buildings. There 
are six fields of arable land, comprising two hundred and 
eighty-seven bonnier s,'^ enough in which to sow thirteen 
hundred midds'^ of graii^; one hundred and twenty-seven 
arpents^ of vineyard, good for eight hundred measures* of 
wine ; and a hundred arpents of meadow, from which a hundred 
and fifty loads ^ of hay can be taken. In woodland, all to- 
gether, there is as much as would make two leagues across, 
sufficient to fatten fifty hogs.* There are three mills, which 
bring in one hundred and fifty-four muids. There is a church, 
with all its furnishings. . . . 

P A bonnier, Latin bonuarium, was possibly a little above three acres. See 
Longnon, Polyptique de I'Abbaye de Saint-Germain des Pres, Introduction, pp. 
20-2I.] 

[^ M. Seignobos says hoisseaux for muids. The muid, Latin modius, as used 
here, was possibly a little less than six pecks. See Longnon, as before, p. 26.] 

[' The arpent, as understood on the domains of Saint-Germain des Pres, was 
probably equivalent to a little less than a third of one of our acres. See Longnon, 
as before, p. 19.] 

[* The original has modios, or muids, the same measure as that just used in 
reference to grain.] 

[* The load referred to was probably less than half a ton. See Longnon, as 
before, p. 29.] 

• The meat most common at this time was pork ; the forest (of oaks) was con- 
sidered especially as hog pasture. This was still the condition in Croatia and 
Servi» in the eighteenth century. 



THE PEASANTS 5 

" Wilfridus, a colonus, and his wife, a colona, tenants of 
Saint-Germain, have with them two children, named . . . 
He occupies two free holdings. For each holding he pays 
one ox, does the fall work on four perches,^ does corvees, 
carting, and odd jobs when he is ordered ; also he pays three 
pullets and fifteen eggs. Hairmundus, a colonus, and his wife, 
a colona, tenants of Saint-Germain, have with them five chil- 
dren. . . . He occupies one free holding containing ten bon- 
nier s in arable land, two arpents in vineyard, one arpent and 
a half in meadow. He pa>'s the same." A hundred and ten 
like articles follow, concerning coloni who each occupied one 
holding. " Maurus, serf, and his wife, free, tenants of Saint- 
Germain, have with them two children. . . . Guntoldus, colonus 
of Saint-Germain. These people occupy one servile holding, 
containing two bonnier s in arable land, two arpents and a half 
in vineyard, one arpent and a half in meadow. They cultivate 
eight acres of vineyard, pay four measures of wine, two setiers ^ 
of mustard, three pullets, fifteen eggs, and do odd jobs, 
corvees, and carting. . . ." The chapter on Palaiseau ends 
thus: "This makes in all one hundred and seventeen hold- 
ings, free and servile." 

Outside of the reserve, from which the landlord drew profit 
directly by means of the corvees, the domain was cut up into 
tenures (that is, the holdings), divided here into two classes: 
the larger ones, the free holdings, to judge by their name, 
were occupied at first by free tenants ; the smaller, the servile 
holdings, by slaves of the landlord. But this division did not 
last, for in the very register which makes it known to us we 
see that it had ceased to be observed ; we find serfs on free 
holdings and free tenants on servile holdings. 

An inventory of the estates of Charlemagne, dating from 
8io, shows an altogether similar regime established on an 
island of a little lake in the mountains of Bavaria (Staffelsee). 

[1 It is thought that at that time people reckoned fifty perches to the bonnier ; 
which would make about seventeen perches in an acre, instead of one hundred and 
sixty as in our reckoning.] 

[* The sttier, Latin sextarius, of Charlemagne's time was probably equivalent 
to about 3 J litres, or about 5i pints. See Longnon, as before, p. 27.] 



6 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

' ' On this estate are eighty-three free holdings. Six of these 
each pay annually fourteen muids of grain, four hogs, two 
pullets, ten eggs, one seticr of linseed, one setter of lentils; 
the holder does annually five weeks' corvee, ploughs three 
days, cuts one load of hay in the master's meadow and draws 
it in " ; and so on. 

The documents of the ninth and tenth centuries — they are 
very rare — do not permit us to affirm that all domains were 
organized thus. Indeed we know of some domains which did 
not present the regular arrangements of those of Saint- 
Germain ; some where nothing was uniform, neither the area^ 
of the holdings, nor the rents, nor the corvees due from the 
tenants. Even the mansus^ [holding], which on the lands of 
Saint-Germain appears to have corresponded to a certain value 
(if not an area) , in most of the countries of the South was only 
a vague name for any tenure attached to a rural house. Often, 
in place of the mansus, we fmd the colonica (tenure of the 
colonus), which seems to have consisted of lands attached to 
an isolated house ; the tenants, in that case, instead of living 
together near the master's house were scattered over the 
estate. 

Nor can it be said exactly over what countries this rural 
regime extended; the statistical inquiry that would tell us 
cannot be made, for lack of documents. But it is probable 
that it was of Roman origin, and that it dominated almost all 
the ancient Roman territory of Gaul, except the mountainous 
regions of the Pyrenees and the environs of the old Roman 
towns, especially of those in the south and in the valleys of the 
Rhone and Saone. It is, at least, the only one which the 
isolated documents of this obscure period present, and it is the 
one which, in the thirteenth century, we find established in 
almost all of France. 

It was also the usual regime in Italy in the thirteenth cen- 
tury ; but in the environs of the towns, which formed a good 
part of the territory and withal the richest, the owners let their 
lands, often by a perpetual lease (the old emphyteusis), to 

^ The word is of Latin origin and seems to have meant at first a house {manere). 



THE PEASANTS 7 

renters or to farmers who worked them on shares. Spain, too, 
had its population of peasant tenants; but, in the lands that 
remained Christian, many farmers lived in the fortified towns, 
and in the country conquered from the Moors the rural 
organization of the East was partly preserved. In Germany, 
where small owners were perhaps still numerous in the time 
of Charlemagne, cultivation by tenants (probably introduced 
by convents and princes) soon won the entire country, except 
some regions of the Alps and the plains bordering on the North 
Sea, where the peasant-owners maintained themselves. The 
same was true in the Scandinavian countries, but only after 
the fourteenth century. As for England, the register made 
by the Norman kings shows the entire country covered with 
great domains divided into parcels which tenants held through 
payment of dues and corvees. This organization seems to 
have existed before the Norman conquest. 

Thus the regime of great estates, of hereditary tenures, of 
dues and corvees, dominated all civilized Europe. It stopped 
in the west only with the mountains of Wales and Scotland, 
in the south only before the Mohammedans. Toward the east 
it extended indefinitely, according as the Slavic peoples 
became civilized. This regime was established, in its funda- 
mental features, from the tenth century; the documents show 
it completely formed toward the end of the eleventh ; and from 
then on to the fourteenth century it changed but little. We 
can essay then to give an idea of the peasants in this period. 

The Village. — It was still the great estate that dominated 
the peasant's whole life. The master's dwelling had become 
a fortified house, sometimes a castle, with a reserve (fields, 
vineyards, meadows, fish-ponds, woods) which was very ex- 
tensive, to judge by present standards. Near it were grouped 
the tenants' houses, which were of two different types: the 
complete house, built around a court* and with a garden 
adjoining, that of the comfortably situated peasant, '' possessor 
of a yoke of oxen; and the cottage, a building in one piece, 

' In German, the same word, Hof, designates the court and the house. 
* In German, he is called Vollbauer (full cultivator). 



8 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

occupied by the peasant who had only the labor of his hands. 
Through increase of the population the group had become 
a village; sometimes, though rarely, a bourg with a wall. In 
France it kept the old Roman name of the domain, villa\ 
people called it ville, and the peasants called themselves 
villains. The endings ha7n in England, hci7n and hausen in 
Germany, had a like meaning. 

ConnecteJ with this village was a territory (called, in the 
north of France, the finage), whose limits remained those of 
the old domain. It often happened that in the course of 
centuries the domain had come to belong to several owners, 
who shared the reserve and the peasants; but the territory, 
like the group, remained unchanged. Everywhere, in Ger- 
many as in France, the domain grew by long custom to be 
fixed. Ordinarily it became the modern commune ; and thus 
the great landlords of former times marked out the frame and 
created the fundamental unit of our democratic administra- 
tions. As there were still lands to occupy and forests to 
clear, principally in Germany, new villages^ arose during all 
the middle ages, and especially in the thirteenth century; but 
they were constituted on the model of the old ones. 

Leaving the reserve out of consideration, the territory of 
the village was cut up into small parcels which the peasants 
handed down from father to son. If. in certain regions of 
Germany, it was customary in early times to put all lands in 
common and divide them an^w among the inhabitants, — which 
has not at all been proved, — this custom disappeared every- 
where in the middle ages, and tenures remained perpetually 
in the same family. 

It was very rare that the holding of a tenant consisted of a 
single bit of land. Ordinarily it was made up of several pieces, 
scattered over divers quarters of the village territory, in the 
form of long narrow strips ; such as one sees still in the plains 
of northeastern France and of western Germany, where the 
traditional boundaries of the fields have been preser\''ed. 

* In Germany the villages established on forest clearings bear the ending rod< 
or roda, which signifies clearing (Wemigerode, Osterode, Friedrichsroda). 



THE PEASANTS 9 

This division of the land frequently owed its origin to the 
primitive organization of the domain: it had been made in 
accordance with a three-year system of rotation of crops which 
was very common in the ninth and tenth centuries (winter 
wheat, spring wheat, fallow). In the course of centuries the 
pieces increased in number; for the tenant, in France at least, 
had the right to subdivide his holding, provided that the new 
possessors should keep up the charges. Their number could 
increase indefinitel}', as could also the number of tenants, up 
to the limit of the lands resources. If the limit was passed, 
a famine or an epidemic reestablished the equilibrium between 
the population and the means of sustenance. In Germany 
the holdings often became indivisible, and beginning with the 
twelfth century a class of well-to-do peasants was formed. 

It would be idle to try to fix the number of the rural popula- 
tion of Europe, even in the thirteenth century; the documents 
are not complete or trustworthj- enough. It is very likely, 
from the analogy of India and of the Mussulman countries, that 
the population, being wretched, prolific and attached to the 
soil, became very dense. 

The entire rural population was designated by the same 
name, rustici (peasants), villaitis. Baiter (cultivators). The 
sense attached in France to the word villain shows well enough 
that the other classes of the nation did not distinguish between 
the peasants, that they thought of them all with the same 
scorn. Nevertheless the condition of the people mingled 
together in this lower class had been, at the beginning, pro- 
foundly different; and there still remained enough of this 
difference to form two categories, designated in the French 
acts of the time by different names : the serfs and the free men. 
The Serfs. — The serfs were the descendants, or at least the 
successors, of the ancient Roman slaves [sen'i). But in the 
course of centuries their condition had gradually become better. 
The master was also a landlord : he saw in the slave only an 
instrument of cultivation, and asked of him only that he make 
his domain bring in what it should. The rural slaves, having 
ceased to be sold, could marry; and they remained fixed upon 



lO THE FEUDAL REGIME 

the same domain, founding there a race of cultivators. Each 
family received from the master a house and a portion of land, 
which it transmitted from generation to generation and which 
the master gave up taking back. The serf had become a 
tenant. By the simple fact that slaves had been reduced to 
the role of cultivators and that the master no longer demanded 
personal service from them,^ slavery had been transformed into 
serfdom ; just as, in an inverse sense, the Russian seigneurs in 
the eighteenth century, by imposing the roles of lackeys and 
house-servants upon the serfs of their lands, built up again a 
slavery like that of ancient times. 

The serf had not received his tenure as a free gift; the 
landlord, who remained his master, demanded from him 
heavier dues and corvees, often at will. He was "liable to 
tax and corvee at will ' ' , according to the energetic expression 
of the time. However, custom was so strong in the middle 
ages that in the end it often fixed even the dues from serfs: 
the landlord could ask of them nothing above what they had 
always paid. In an inverse sense it was not always necessary 
to be a serf to be taxable at will. 

It seems indeed that in the middle ages the charges 
peculiar to the serf and characteristic of his condition were 
those that denoted still a personal dependence: capitation, 
right of marriage, mortmain. Capitation was a charge due 

per head,^ and was ordinarily paid annually. The master 
imposed it upon his serfs in virtue of his absolute right; it was 
a survival of slavery. The right of marriage ^ was a charge 
paid to the landlord by the man or woman serf who married 
a person outside of the seigneury. So long as the tenants of 

* We do not mean to say that in the middle ages there were no serfs acting as 
house-servants ; but they appear very rarely, and they are not in question when 
one speaks of serfs. 

* It recalls the obrok of Russian serfs. 

* With serfdom, undoubtedly, is connected the famous "right of the seigneur ". 
which has called forth so many bitter polemics between the admirers and the 
detractors of the middle ages. In the form in which light literature has made it 
celebrated this right is mentioned only very rarely, in documents of a late period 
and subject furthermore to opposed interpretations. 



THE PEASANTS H 

the same landlord married among themselves they did not 
cease to be subject to him, and their marriage was indifferent 
to him. At the most it gave occasion for a slight charge. 
But by marrying outside, the woman serf would leave her 
master: she could do it only on his authorization. The 
right of marriage, apparently, was the price paid to the 
master to obtain his consent to the marriage. Mortmain 
was the right of the master to take possession of the hold- 
ing of his serf when he died without leaving a child who was 
living with him. The serf family only possessed its house 
and field by the sufferance of the master, the only real 
owner. The custom grew up of leaving the holding to the 
family as long as its members continued to live in common. 
But if the family became extinct or scattered, the holding 
returned to the owner without his having to take account of 
collateral kindred or even of the children of his serf who were 
established elsewhere; for it belonged to him. Or, if he con- 
sented to give it to the relatives of his serf, it was in con- 
sideration of a rather high repurchase right. It was this right 
of escheat that was called mortmain (the word appears in the 
eleventh century). Custom or individual contracts often fixed 
the amount of the repurchase right. In many Germanic 
countries (England, Germany, Flanders), the right was 
reduced to the master's deducting from the inheritance some 
article or one of its cattle. For the same reason that a serf 
could not dispose of his holding by will, he could not during 
his life sell it or alienate it without the express consent of his 
seigneur. 

A more significant trait of his original servitude subsisted 
for a long time. The serf established on a domain could not 
be separated from it by his master, but he on his side did not 
have the right to leave it and establish himself elsewhere. » If 
he left without permission, he wronged his master by depriving 
him of his services ; the master had the right to pursue the 
fugitive and bring him back. This was the right of pursuit. 

» The expression " serf of the glebe", often used to detigiute the lerft of tkc 
middle ages, it not met with in the documents. 



12 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

Sometimes seigneurs took measures against these desertions 
by entering into an agreement with neighboring seigneurs 
mutually to deliver up their serfs. In other instances they 
made inquests to seek out serfs who were trying to escape 
:hem either by concealing their condition, or by establishing 
themselves on the lands of other seigneurs, or by entering the 
clergy. The count of Flanders, Charles, was assassinated in 
1 1 27 for having engaged in a search in which a family of 
dignitaries sprung from a serf found itself compromised. The 
ttgor of this law of pursuit was early softened. In France, 
in the twelfth century, the custom seems to have been estab- 
iished that a serf could betake himself elsewhere ordinarily on 
two conditions: he had to give formal warning to his seigneur 
(called disavowal); he had to give up all goods he possessed 
on the domains of his seigneur. 

Serfdom existed, under different names, in all Europe.^ 
It seems that as early as the time of Charlemagne the serfs 
formed the greater part of the rural population, and their 
descendants were born serfs. Their holdings even took on 
after a while the condition of serfdom, and transmitted it to 
the people who came to occupy them: by living on a serf's 
holding a free man became a serf.^ This is what the jurists 
called " real servitude." 

Manumission. — On the other hand, the serf could become 
a free man. He could obtain his freedom individually from 
his master, like the ancient slave, by means of a symbolic 
ceremony or by a written act (charter); this latter form is the 
only one which persisted through the middle ages. But 
giving freedom individually became more and more rare; 
almost always the master freed all the serfs of a domain at 
once, changing by a single act the condition of an entire 
village or of an entire quarter. 

Of course the master was not moved by generosity. The 
serfs purchased their freedom : at first by paying a given sum, 

' In Germany, the serfs were called LHbeigen. 

* The other sources of servitude— war, condemnation, donation, offering to the 
church — were of too little practical importance to merit more than mere mention. 
So also with the coliberti. 



THE PEASANTS 1 3 

especially after the twelfth century, when money became less 
scarce ; then by binding themselves in perpetuity, themselves 
and their successors, to pay certain special charges which 
recalled their former condition. 

In exchange, the master gave up the right to demand from 
them the charges peculiar to serfs, especially mortmain. Often 
also he gave up arbitrary charges and pledged himself to levy 
only fixed charges, but manumission did not necessarily lead 
to this. The situation of those who had been manumitted 
depended solely upon conditions agreed to between them and 
their master and expressly stipulated in a written contract, a 
charter. In any case they remained tenants of the domain ; 
and as there was only a difference of charges between the serf 
tenant and the free tenant, their condition was not as much 
modified as the pompous formulas that were employed in 
certain charters to vaunt the benefits of liberty would make 
believe. Sometimes the serfs refused to purchase their liberty 
at the price placed upon it, until the seigneur forced them to 
it. 

The Free Villains. — There had always been free men on the 
great domains. In the time of the Empire, along with the 
slaves were the coloni; later also the Germanic laets. The 
charters, to designate the inhabitants of a domain, said "the 
people, free men as well as serfs." 

The free men, in distinction from the serfs, owed nothing 
to the master ; they were dependent upon him only in so far 
as he was their landlord, only because they lived upon his 
lands. They were renters or farmers in perpetuity. Their 
holding was a fragment of the great domain. They cultivated 
it for their profit, on the condition of paying either a fixed 
amount, like our farm-rents, or a certain part of the produce, 
as in our farming on shares. In distinction from the renter or 
farmer of our day their condition was fixed forever : the land- 
lord could not take back their lands nor increase their rent. 
On the condition that they paid the old charges they were free 
to dispose of their holding, to bequeath it as they would, to 
transfer it, even (at least in France) to parcel it out. 



14 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

The most fortunate owed only an annual sum, the censive 
or cenSy which had been fixed very early and by reason of the 
cheapening of money had become all but nominal. The larger 
portion owed several charges, perhaps variable, sometimes 
even arbitrary, -but become regular by usage. Often the 
seigneur had accepted, for value received, a "subscription" 
contract (sanctioned by a charter) which limited each charge 
to a fixed figure or proportion : the tenants had become 
"subscribers." It is probable that free tenants who were 
subject to arbitrary tax and corvee still existed in the thir- 
teenth century, but they were certainly not numerous. 

The hospites, who were numerous in some provinces, were 
also free men. Their name indicates that they were originally 
strangers, probably admitted upon the domain to clear lands 
not yet under cultivation. The bo7'darii of Normandy, the 
English cottagers, the Kossate of Germany, were small tenants, 
lodged in huts, who had no cattle and who paid for their 
holding rather in corvees than in rents. 

The proportion of different sorts of peasants varied with the 
locality and with the time. It seems that the serfs were at first 
in the majority, at least in the north. But their number was con- 
tinually diminishing. Serfdom was a residue of ancient slavery 
and of German serfdom . fixed upon the land and by the land ; 
but it had ceased to be recruited, because no new slaves were 
made. When a village oi serfs obtained a charter of manu- 
mission the territory of serfdom was cut down ; and it did not 
increase, for no free land ever became serf again. In the 
most civilized countries (Italy, the south of France, Normandy), 
where the development took place most rapidly, it was already 
nearly completed in the twelfth century ; there remained only 
free peasants. 

Seigneurial Exploitation. — Dependence upon his village 
landlord — called in Latin dominus, in German Herr, in 
French seigneur — was tlie characteristic trait of the peasant 
of the middle ages. This seigneur might be great or small, 
a knight, a count, a king ; he might be a warrior, a bishop, an 
abbot, or a woman: the relations between the peasants and 



THE PEASANTS 15 

the seigneur remained the same. They always rested upon 
the right of the seigneur to take revenue and services from his 
peasants, and not be in any way obHged to them in return, 
save to leave them the possession of his land. This was an 
exploitation (the word itself dates from this time). 

How it was established is one of the most disputed ques- 
tions in the history of the middle ages, and the documents 
are too rare and too imperfectly studied to permit of its solu- 
tion. It was in the logic of the organization of the great 
^domains that the tenant should be constrained to dues and 
corvees and subjected to the landlord's intendant; this still 
happens to-day. But as a matter of fact we know also of 
examples of exploitation that originated in usurpation or 
violence: functionaries who transformed the rights of their 
office (for example, rights of toll or of requisition, or the right 
of imposing fines) into perpetual property rights ; laymen who 
took for themselves the tithes originally created for the profit 
of the church ; seigneurs who exacted a payment from the 
peasants of another domain under the name of guard-money, 
that is to say, assurances against their own brigandage; land- 
lords who increased unduly the charges of their tenants. 
What was the origin, in any given village, of such and such 
an obligation of the inhabitants, or indeed in what proportion 
violence, usurpation, and fraud united with the primitive right 
of the landlord to form this regime, statistics alone could tell 
us ; and these statistics will never be made. 

But the obscurity as to origins does not hinder us from 
forming a clear idea of the regime as it was in the thirteenth 
century. At first peasants had been able to distinguish be- 
tween the charges they considered legitimate and the unjust 
exactions established by violence or by fraud, which they 
called "bad customs" (the expression is frequent especially 
in the eleventh century). In time usage had legitimatized 
the " bad customs " and fixed all the obligations of the peas- 
ants. These obligations, which were later called feudal 
rights (improperly, since they had nothing in common with 
the Jief), differed a little from one village to another. The 



1 6 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

same obligation often had a different name in different places. 
It would therefore be a long task to draw up a list of these 
names (Du Cange gives one which takes up twenty-seven 
quarto columns). But under these different names there 
existed an analogous regime in all Europe. Considering 
simply the form of t^vese obHgations, not their origin, they 
can be distinguished as redevances, prestations, and corvees. 

Redevances. — The redevances were paid either in money or 
in produce; they were due at fixed times or on the occasion of 
certain acts. . 

The fixed redevances paid in money were especially 
(besides the capitation of the serfs) the redemption taxes, the 
censy the taille. The cens was a money payment due from 
the tenant on account of his tenure, a sort of farm-rent, fixed 
by old custom. If the tenant did not pay it at the stipulated 
time, the seigneur could take away his tenure; or at least 
exact, with the original sum, a supplementary fine. In some 
countries redevances also existed upon the house or the 
chimney {masuragiuniy focagium, fumagiuni). The taille (or 
questd) was a regular charge levied one or more times yearly 
upon each family of tenants. The name (which is not found 
before the eleventh century) means simply the notch made 
with a knife on a bit of wood at the time when the charge 
was paid. Whatever its origin may have been, whether 
it was a form of the capitation of serfs or a new right 
imposed upon all tenants, the taille became so general that in 
ordinary language it stood for all of the redevances: people 
said '•'' taille able ■aX\i\S\..^' The taille appears at first to have 
been arbitrary (at the will of the seigneur, a merci)} The 
peasants seem to have tried hard to fix it; at the end of the 
thirteenth century they had succeeded in their endeavor almost 
everywhere, often by buying a contract from the seigneur in 
which he agreed thenceforth to demand only a fixed ^ sum. 
Sometimes the wife of the seigneur interceded for the poor 

* Which means without other limit than the mercy of the seigneur. 

* Besides the regular tailles the seigneur sometimes levied an extraordinary 
taille, on certain exceptional occasions, such as the marriage of his daughter. 



THE PEASANTS t7 

tenants and her intervention gave rise to a touching legend, 
like that of Lady Godiva. The redemption taxes represented 
old charges paid in produce, which had been suppressed by 
an agreement with the seigneur. 

The redevances paid in produce and due at fixed times 
consisted especially of a part of the products of the soil, col- 
lected after the harvest ; just as this is done to-day in regions 
where farms are worked on shares. Thus the seigneur took a 
part of the sheaves of wheat {canipipars, gerhagium), of the 
oats {avenagtum), of the hay {fenagium), of the vintage 
{vinagiuin, complantum), of the chickens, of the wax.* He 
also levied a charge in money or produce for each head of 
stock (ox, sheep, pig, or goat). 

Many redevances fell upon certain acts, and the number of 
acts subjected to such a charge increased during the middle 
ages (at least the names which designate them appear but 
rarely until after the tenth century). In the thirteenth century, 
we find a system of charges upon transfers : lods (laudes) and 
ventcs, a right paid by the tenant when he gave or sold his 
holding to have the seigneur approve the transfer; the charge 
upon succession (relief or redemption), — without counting the 
mortmain on the succession of serfs or the right of escheat in 
the case of goods to which there were no heirs. We also find 
a number of charges on circulation, some of them very old; 
on roads {carriagium, roagiutn, etc.), on bridges, on rivers, 
in ports, at the passage of gates ; and a group of charges 
on commerce and industry: rights on the sale of wheat, of 
salt, of meat, of merchandise, and rights upon markets 
(including charges on the location of tables and of reserved 
places in the hall, and on the merchants' hampers) and upon 
fairs. 

Banalities. — There was a whole system of redevances that 
were attached to obligations imposed by the seigneur, and that 
took the form of a monopoly. These were the banalities. 
They appear in the documents only after the tenth century. 

• Wax was needed for the candles in the churches and for the seals affixed to 
acts. Consequently beehives were much more numerous in the middle ages. 



iS THE FEUDAL REGIME 

Their name shows that they were organized by means of the 
ban, which was the power of the seigneur to issue proclama- 
tions and to have them executed under penalty of fine ; but the 
origin of this power is obscure and controverted.' 

The tenants were obliged to have their grain ground at 
the banal mill, to have their bread baked in the banal oven, 
to have their grapes pressed at the banal press ; and each time 
they had to pay a charge (ordinarily a portion of the grain, of 
the flour, or of the vintage). The seigneur exacted a pay- 
ment from the tenants for allowing them to cut wood in his 
forests, or graze their stock in his pastures,'^ or fish in his 
waters (ordinarily the seigneur reserved the right to hunt 
exclusively to himself). The seigneur also imposed the ex- 
clusive use of his weights and measures, and this was still 
another occasion for redevances. The seigneur forbade his 
tenants to sell their grain or their wine within a certain time 
after the harvest, and during this time he sold his own without 
competition. All these monopolies were more oppressive to 
the tenants than profitable to the seigneur. 

Rights of Justice. — These also were redevances, rights 
which the seigneur levied in virtue of his power of jurisdiction. 
The people of the middle ages certainly understood it so, for 
in the acts where the lucrative dependencies of a domain are 
enumerated, we find justice figuring along with lands, vine- 
yards, meadows, woods, mills. In almost all the documents 
of the middle ages, justice means the right of levying fines or 
the product of those fines. Very often this right was shared 
vv ith other persons, and mention is made of the half or quarter 
of the justice of such and such a village. They even came to 
distinguish between high and low justice (later also middle), 

* The question most discussed is whether the seigneur acted in virtue of his 
right as landlord or whether he was exercising a public power, legal (delegated 
by the sovereign) or usurped. 

' It is not agreed whether the woods and pastures had always belonged to the 
landlord, who conceded only the use of them to his tenants, or whether they were 
formerly goods held in common, later usurped by the seigneur. The latter 
opinion is connected with a general theory which makes collective ownership the 
primitive regime of all Europe. It has scarcely any documentary foundation and 
has been strongly combated by Fustel de Coulanges. 



% 



THE PEASANTS 



according to the value of the profits. Ordinarily high justice 
meant that one had the right of levying fines of more than 
sixty sous. They brought under this head the right of con- 
demning to death, which entailed the right of confiscating the 
goods of the condemned. 

What was the origin of these justices .-' Was the right of 
rendering public justice, formerly reserved to the sovereign and 
his functionaries (dukes, counts, centenarti), given to or usurped 
by the seigneur ? Or did he only extend the domestic power 
exercised from time immemorial by the master over the serfs 
of his household, by the landlord over the tenants of his lands ? 
The problem is not yet considered solved. But we must resist 
the natural temptation to imagine ' * high justice " as a privi- 
lege reserved to a few great seigneurs. In France especially, 
the seigneur of a single village (and at the beginning each 
village was simply a single domain) almost always had high 
justice over his tenants. Beaumanoir, at the end of the 
thirteenth century, says that all the vassals of the count of 
Clermont had, on their lands, "all justice." If Normandy 
was an exception, it was because the duke, who organized it, 
reserved the right of condemning to death (justice of the 
sword) to himself. We must also remember that justice, 
having been treated like every other lucrative property, was 
often divided up, in such manner that tiie primitive extent of 
the rights it conferred was rendered unrecognizable, especially 
in the thirteenth century.* 

Organized as we see it in the twelfth century, justice was 
a form of the exploitation of tenants by the seigneur. The 
word exploit was even used to designate judicial formalities; 
they said "subject to taille and to justice", or "subject 
to exploitation." And like the taille, justice could be either 
arbitrary or limited ; that is to say, the fine could be either at 
the will of the seigneur or fixed at a definite sum. In general, 

^ The jurists, beginning with the fifteenth century, ceased to understand the 
social organizatKjn of the middle ages and aided in accumulating around the 
question of the origin of the justices a mass of clouds which are all brought 
together in the book of Championni6re : Traite sur la Propriety des Eaux 
Cour antes ^ 181^6. 



20 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

the amounts had become fixed. Custom finally established 
a certain fine for each crime. Frequently also the seigneur 
made a contract with the peasants which regulated the tariff of 
fines. Here is an example in the year 1239, taken from a 
village in Belgium (Sirault) ; it shows with what definiteness 
all cases were provided for : " The spoken insult is at four 
sous, the lie is at five sous. Whosoever strikes another . . . 
it is at ten sous, and if blood flows it is at twenty sous. 
Whosoever draws a cutting weapon without striking, it is at 
thirty sous. The blow of a club is at twenty sous, and if blood 
flows, at forty sous. The blow of a cutting weapon is at sixty 
sous." For grave crimes (murder, arson, rape, and ordinarily 
larceny) the right of the seigneur remained discretionary. 
The penalty was death or banishment, and the seigneur con- 
fiscated all the goods of the condemned. 

Out of the right of justice arose also the redevances the 
tenants paid to be exempted from attending the three annual 
judicial assemblies (general pleas) ; the payments levied upon 
tenants who pleaded among themselves before the tribunal of 
the seigneur; and probaby the rights of seal, record, notary, 
paid for having private acts drawn up and authenticated (rights 
which still subsist). 

Prestations. — Much less important than the redevances, the 
prestations were irregular charges, requisitions, which the 
seigneur exacted, though by what title it is often difficult to 
say. The most frequent was the right of entertainment, due 
often to a seigneur who was not the landlord of the village. 
The peasants had to receive the seigneur when he came into 
the village, lodge him and his escort, horses, dogs, and 
falcons, serve a meal to the men and feed the animals. This 
ruinous obligation was gradually regulated. Custom estab- 
lished how often the seigneur had the right to demand hospi- 
tality (ordinarily three times per year), how many men and 
animals he could bring along, and how liberally he was entitled 
to be served at table. Then the right was converted into an 
annual tax. 

The right of seizure was the right of the seigneur to take 



THE PEASANTS 21 

what he must have for the needs of his house, provisions, 
beasts of burden, ploughs, fodder, even beds; ordinarily at 
some price, either arbitrary or fixed. The right of credit 
permitted the seigneur to require merchants to give him on 
credit the articles he demanded of them. Ordinarily the time 
of the credit was limited. 

Corv6e8. — The corvee, that is to say, the obligation to go 
and perform certain work in person, existed before the middle 
ages, and under two forms : the landlord exacted corvees from 
his tenants, for his service ; the State imposed corvees upon 
the inhabitants for the maintenance of roads and bridges. 
Both reappear in the middle ages, but by far the more 
important were the corvees of the landlord. 

The tenants had to aid the seigneur in cultivating his 
domain : they must plough his fields, dress his vines, harvest 
his grain, mow his meadows, draw in his sheaves and his hay. 
Usually these services were regulated: the tenant subject to 
corvee owed a fixed number of dajs per year; he owed either 
simply the work of his hands {juanopcrae), or the service of 
his beasts, of his plough, of his carts {carroperae). Custom 
sometimes decided that he should be supported by the sei- 
gneur, and how he should be supported. 

The tenants had to do transport service for the seigneur, fetch 
firewood, stone, furniture, and food. They had to perform 
the seigneur's commissions. They had to keep up the roads, 
repair buildings, clean out the castle moats and the seigneur's 
fish-ponds. They owed assistance in case of flood or of fire. 
The}' must aid the seigneur in his wars, go and mount guard 
in his castle by day or by night (this was the gueta), construct 
fortifications, dig moats, make palisades; they were even 
obliged to follow him to war when he made an expedition into 
the neighboring country (this was the exercitus, or hostis, and 
the cavalcata). 

Of the old State corvees those for the maintenance of high- 
ways, of bridges, and of dikes were perhaps preserved ; but it 
is difficult to di.stinguish them from the corvees established by 
the seigneur for his own profit. 



«2 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

The Intendant. — To collect so many different rights, to 
exact so many services, was a complicated and absorbing task. 
The seigneur did not care to take it upon himself. Except 
in the case of some convents perhaps there could not be found 
in the middle ages a single great domain managed directly 
by the seigneur. Everywhere the seigneur delegated his 
powers to an intendant; the tenants had relations only with 
the intendant. An analogous regime subsists still on the great 
estates of Hungary and Russia. 

We have not documents enough upon the domains of small 
lay seigneurs to say how affairs were managed there. Almost 
all we are acquainted with is the exploitation of the ecclesias- 
tical domains and of those of the great seigneurs. 

It seems that at the beginning there was an intendant in 
each domain, ordinarily a peasant, sometimes even a serf. 
The Latin texts call him now major, now by an old Roman 
name, villicns\ in German he is called Meier, or Schultheiss 
(collector). He held a more important tenure than the other 
tenants. Frequently the functions became fixed in the same 
family, and the domain, from the eleventh century, was 
administered by an hereditary mayor whom the proprietor 
could no longer dismiss. Where the domain belonged to 
several seigneurs, the intendant often continued to administer 
it for all; the joint owners then came to an agreement as to 
the division of revenues and profits. 

But in the thirteenth century, in the case of a great number 
of villages, there appears to have been a division among 
several intendants who each acted for a different seigneur. 
We see very frequently, especially upon the domain of a con- 
vent, an intendant charged with the administration of tenants 
scattered in several villages. This was a consequence of the 
dismemberment of the villa. The isolated tenures were then 
attached artificially to a center of exploitation located outside 
of the territory of the village; the intendant's house was 
situated in a village of the environs: in Germany this was 
called the Frohnhof (the corvee house). 

When a seigneur possessed several villages in the same 



THE PEASANTS 83 

quarter he put them in one group and entrusted them to a 
superior intendant, called in the north provost [praepositus), 
in the south batle {bajulus), in Germany Amman, in some 
places chatelain. Also these intendants frequently became 
hereditary; and there were even infeudated provostships, that 
is to say, given in fief. The name provost was applied also 
to the intendant of a single village. 

The intendant represented the landlord, who left to him 
the exercise of all his rights. He managed the reserve, kept 
the buildings in repair, cultivated the fields, harvested the 
crops. He called for and superintended the corvees. He 
levied the redevances that were fixed and fixed those that 
were variable, usually after having consulted the notables of 
the village "in order to find out each one's means." He 
farmed out the oven, the mill, the wine-press, the market. 
He saw that the ban was cried. He had evil-doers arrested, 
rendered justice, collected fines and executed persons sen- 
tenced to death. He led the tenants to the army of the 
seigneur. 

Ordinarily the intendant received no salary for his services: 
he looked after his pay himself, by keeping a part of the profits. 
In France, from the twelfth century, the provostships even 
came to be farmed out ; they were sold to the highest bidder 
for a certain number of years. The intendant was by no 
means a functionary who was paid to administer a village; his 
post brought him what he could make out of it, for it rested 
with him to take much or little from the tenants. The petty 
rapine and innumerable vexations which such a regime stood 
for can easily be gathered from the example of the Russian 
intendants before the abolition of serfdom. 

Characteristics and Extent of the Seigneurial Regime. — It is 
hardly possible by a single case to give a full idea of so com- 
plicated and varied a regime. The following example is taken 
from an ecclesiastical domain in the thirteenth century, in a 
province (Normandy) where the condition of the villains was 
quite favorable. The details, drawn from a short satirical 
poem which pictures the life of the villains of Verson, are 



24 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

confirmed by the cartulary of the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, 
by which the village was controlled. 

The tenants must fetch stone, mix mortar, and serve the 
masons. Toward the last of June, on demand they must 
mow and turn hay and draw it to the manor-house. In 
August they must reap the convent's grain, put it in sheaves 
and draw it in. For their tenure they owe the champart: they 
cannot remove their sheaves before they have been to seek the 
assessor of the champart, who deducts his due, and they must 
cart his part to the champart-barn ; during this time their own 
grain remains exposed to the wind and rain. On the eighth of 
September the villain owes his pork-due, one pig in eight; he 
has the right to take out two, the third choice belongs to the 
seigneur. On the ninth of October he pays the cens. At Christ- 
mas he owes his chicken-due ; also the grain-due of two setters 
of barley and a quart of wheat. On Palm Sunday he owes his 
sheep-due ; and if he does not pay it on the day set the sei- 
gneur fines him, arbitrarily. At Easter he owes corvee : by 
way of corvee he must plough, sow and harrow. If the villain 
sells his land, he owes the seigneur the thirteenth part of its 
value. If he marries his daughter to any one outside the 
seigneury, he pays a marriage-right of three sous. He is sub- 
jected to the mill-ban and the oven-ban : his wife goes to get 
bread ; she pays the customary charges ; ^ the woman at the 
oven grumbles — for she is " very proud and haughty" — and 
the man at the oven complains of not having his due; he 
swears that the oven will be poorly heated and that the vil- 
lain's bread will be all raw and not well browned. The 
picture stops with this trait, which shows the villains a prey 
to the bickerings of subalterns. 

This agricultural regime is not what we are used to. It 
unites in a confused whole all the systems which we now see 
working separately. To-day we have cultivation on a large 
scale, practised by the large landowners, and cultivation on a 
small scale, practised by the small landowners. The middle 
ages was a time of ownership on a large scale and cultivation 

[' Tliey are specified in the original : "fournage, le tortel, Taiage."] 



THE PEASANTS *$ 

on a small scale ; the great landowner distributed the larger 
part of his domain among peasants who practised cultivation 
on a small scale in the manner of our small landowners. 
To-day the landowner who does not cultivate his land him- 
self usually chooses between two plans : either he exploits it 
directly through laborers paid by the day, or he gives it over 
to a farmer or renter for a definite sum or for a share of the 
produce. In the latter case he takes back the land on the 
expiration of the contract. In the middle ages the owner 
employed the same men as day-laborers on his reserve and as 
renters on the lands that he did not exploit directly. But they 
were day-laborers who received no pay and hereditary renters 
from whom he could not take back the land they cultivated.* 

The landowner, in allowing generations of tenants to suc- 
ceed each other upon the same soil, by a sort of prescription 
lost his absolute right of disposing of the land. The tenants, 
in return for this hereditary possession, remained subject to 
pecuniary or personal charges, which constituted a sort of rent. 
These pecuniary charges and these corvees, which were due to 
the seigneur, cannot therefore be compared to a tax or a 
public prestation ; they rested upon the same principle that 
underlies the obligations of modern farmers and renters : they 
grew out of the right of the owner to make the tenant pay for 
the service rendered him in lending him land. The difference 
is that while our farmers have but a precarious possession and 
are in danger of seeing their charges increased at the end of 
the lease, the tenant of the middle ages enjoyed an assured 
possession, encumbered only with fixed charges. He was 
consequently in a firmer situation, one that was nearer to 
ownership. And yet the feudal rights (as they were im- 
properly called later) were destined to become so odious that 
it was necessary to abolish them in all Europe. This was 
because the peasants, become hereditary possessors, finally 
looked upon their tenure as a property encumbered with servi- 
tudes. They deemed themselves owners, not farmers. The 

* There were also temporary farmers ami renters, like ours, especially after the 
twelfth century. But this was exceptional. 



26 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

seigneur seemed to them a parasite who rendered them no 
service in exchange for what he took from them. 

The other characteristic trait of this regime is that there 
was no State over the seigneur to step in between him and his 
peasants, as the modern State steps in between the owners and 
the farmers. ** Between thy villain and thee there is no other 
judge but God, " says a French jurist of the thirteenth century. 
In most countries the tenants did not have even the right to 
come together to deliberate on their common interests, except 
by the permission of the seigneur. Illicit assemblage was a 
crime punishable by an arbitrary fine. Thus the peasants 
were irremediably subject to the seigneur and to his intendant. 
The seigneur, too, was at the same time party and judge, and 
no superior power obliged him to remain within the limits of 
his rights. The condition of the peasants therefore depended 
upon the character of the seigneur and of the intendant, and 
consequently always remained precarious. 

We should be giving ourselves a false impression if we 
imagined that all the peasants of Europe were under the regime 
which we have just described. During the entire middle ages 
there remained some peasants who were full owners, inde- 
pendent of the seigneurs of the neighborhood, subject only to 
the prince of the country, sometimes even organized into com- 
munities: the freeholders of Aquitaine, the mountaineers of 
Beam, of Bigorre and of the Basque countries, the free men 
of Schwyz and Appenzell, the free peasants of the Alps, of 
Westphalia and of Friesland, — not to speak of the farmers of 
Normandy, the English free tenants and the emphyteutas of 
Italy. But such persons formed only scattered and widely 
separated groups; and we should be giving ourselves a much 
falser impression still if we imagmed that even as many as a 
quarter, say, of the peasants of the middle ages were in the 
condition of these privileged few. 



II 

THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 

The Nobles; their Arms. — In all the Europe of the middle 
ages, those that were rich enough not to have to work formed 
a privileged class, sharply separated from the rest of society. 
All who were in this upper class, except the clergy, were 
warriors by profession. 

Charlemagne alread\' had required that all the free men of 
his empire should bear arms. The necessity of defending 
oneself, the taste for idleness and adventure, and the prejudice 
in favor of the warrior's life led in all Europe to the formation 
of an aristocracy of men of arms. There was no need of the 
State's higher authority to impose military service. The life 
of war being alone esteemed among laymen, each one sought 
to lead it; the class of men of arms included all who had the 
means to enter it. 

The first condition was to be able to equip oneself at one's 
own expense. Now, from the ninth century, almost all com- 
bat was on horseback ; accordingly the warrior of the middle 
ages called himself in France c/in^alic?-, in southern France 
caver, in Spain caballero, in Germany Ritter. In the Latin 
texts the ancient name of the soldier, miles, became synony- 
mous with chevalier. 

In all Europe, war was carried on under the same condi- 
tions and the men of arms were equipped in about the same 
way. The man completely armed for battle — the chevalier, or 
knight — had his body protected by armor. Down to the end 
of the eleventh century this was the byrnie, a tunic of leather 
or cloth covered with metal scales or rings; then the byrnie 

27 



28 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

was everywhere replaced by the hauberk/ a coat of metal mail 
with sleeves and a hood, opening at the top in such fashion 
that it could be put on like a shirt. The hauberk at first came 
down to the feet; when it was shortened to the knee the legs 
were covered with greaves of mail, which protected the feet 
and to which was fastened the spur, of the form of a lance-point. 
The hood concealed the neck and the head, and came up to 
the chin, allowing simply the eyes, nose and mouth to show. 
At the moment of combat the knight covered his head with 
the helm, a steel cap in the shape of a rimmed cone, topped 
by a circular knob of metal or glass, the crest, and provided 
with a blade of iron which protected the nose, the nasal. ^ 
This helm was laced to the hauberk with leather strings. 
Only in the fourteenth century appear the armor of metal plates 
and the visored casque, which were to last down to the seven- 
teenth century — the armor of Bayard and of Henry IV, 
which we are too often tempted to imagine as characteristic 
of the knights of the middle ages. 

To parry blows, the knights carried the ecu, a buckler of 
wood and of leather bound together by bands of metal, pro- 
vided in the center with a buckle of gilded iron (whence the 
name buckler). The ecu, after having been round, became 
oblong, and lengthened out in a manner to cover a man on 
horseback from his shoulder to his foot. It was carried sus- 
pended from the neck by a wide strap; at the moment of 
combat it was swung to the left arm by means of handles 
placed on the inside. It was on the ecu that the arms which 
each family had adopted as its emblem were painted, beginning 
with the twelfth century. The offensive arms were the sword, 
ordinarily wide and short, with a flat pommel, and the lance, 
made of a long thin shaft (of ash or elm), terminated by a 
lozenge-shaped point. Above the point was nailed a rectan- 
gular band of cloth, the gonfalon, which floated in the wind. 

^ In the Bayeux tapestry, made some years after the conquest of England 
(1066), the greater part of the knights are represented as wearing the byrnie, but 
some have the hauberk. 

* The nasal disappeared at the end of the twelfth century. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY ap 

The lance could be stuck into the ground by the handle, which 
ended in an iron point. 

Thus covered and armed, the knight was well-nigh invul- 
nerable ; and his armor was brought nearer and nearer perfec- 
tion, rendering him like a living fortress. But in consequence 
he was so heavy that he had to have a special horse to carry 
him in battle. He was provided with two horses : the palfrey, 
which he rode when on a journey, and the dcxtrariiis, led 
along by a valet. The moment before combat the knight put 
on his armor, mounted his dextrarius and went forward, hold- 
ing his lance before him. 

The knights were looked upon as the only real men of 
arms; the accounts of combats speak only of them; they alone 
formed the battle-lines. But other cavaliers went with them 
on their expeditions, who were covered with a tunic and a 
bonnet, provided with a lighter and less costly equipment, 
armed with a small buckler, a narrow sword, a pike, an axe 
or a bow, and mounted upon horses of less strength. They 
were the indispensable companions of the knight; they led his 
battle-horse,' carried his buckler, helped him put on his armor 
the moment before combat and mount into the saddle. In 
consequence they were ordinarily called valets or squires; in 
Latin, scut if cr or armiger (he who carries the shield or the 
armor). For a long time the knights kept these valets of 
arms at a distance; even at the end of the eleventh century 
the Chanson dc Roland speaks of squires as of an inferior class. 
They kept their head shaved, like servants, and at table they 
were served a coarser bread. But little by little the brother- 
hood of arms brought the knights and the squires together. 
In the thirteenth centur}' the}- formed one class, the highest in 
lay societ}-, and tlic ancient Latin name of noble {nobilis)^ 
which designated the first class (in German edel^, was given 
to them all. 

Degrees of Nobility. — To lead the life of a warrior it was 
necessary to have the means to live without working. In the 
middle ages no one was noble unless he had a revenue suffi- 

' On the riglit, whence the name dextrarius. 



30 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

cient to support him. Ordinarily this revenue was furnished 
by a landed estate : the noble possessed ^ a domain ; and as he 
did not cultivate it himself (honor forbade that), he had it 
cultivated by his tenants. In this way the noble usually 
exploited at least a few families of villains, in relation to whom 
he was a seigneur (in Latin dominus ; whence the Spanish Don). 
But while a sufficient revenue was the practical condition in 
order to be a noble, there were inequalities of possession 
among the nobles, glaring inequalities which established a 
series of degrees, from the squire to the king. The people 
of the time saw these degrees clearly enough, and even dis- 
tinguished them by names. 

In the highest grade were the princes who had some titled 
dignity (kings, dukes, marquises, counts), sovereigns of an 
entire province, possessors of hundreds of villages, who could 
take several thousand knights to war. 

Then came the higher nobles, ordinarily possessors of many 
villages, who led a troup of knights to war with them. As 
they had no official title they were designated by names of 
common speech, whose meaning was vague and somewhat 
elastic ; names which differed with the country but were used 
synonomously. The most frequent were: baron, in the west 
and south of France and in the Norman regions; sire or 
seigneur'^ in the east (baron designated the man, the man par 
excellence; sire signified both leader and master). In Lom- 
bardy they were called captains, in Spain ricos hombres (rich 
men). In Germany people said Herr, which corresponds to 
seigneur; in England, lord; the translation into Latin was 
dominus (master). Later they were also called bannerets, 
because, to rally their men, they had a square banner at the 
end of their lance. 

Under these came the bulk of the ancient nobility, the 
knights (in German Rittcr, in English knight, in Spanish 
caballero, in Latin miles'), possessors of a domain which con- 

' It will be shown farther on in what different ways a noble could be a pos- 
sessor. 

' Sire is the nominative, seigneur the accusative. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 31 

sisted, according to the richness of the country, of an entire 
village or of a portion of a village. Almost all were in the 
service of some great seigneur, from whom they held their 
domain; they followed him on his expeditions. This, though, 
did not hinder them from making war on their own account. 
They were sometimes called bachelors, in Lombardy vavasors. 
Also one finds the striking expression miles iinius scuti, knight 
of a single shield, who had no other knight under his orders. 

At the bottom of the ladder were the squires. At first 
simple valets of arms in the service of a knight, they became 
possessors of lands (of the extent of what we to-day call a 
great estate) and in the thirteenth century they lived as 
masters in the midst of their tenants. In Germany they were 
designated as Edclknecht (noble valet), in England squire 
(corruption of the word ecuyer), in Spain infanzon. They 
formed the bulk of the nobility in the thirteenth century, and 
in following centuries ennobled bourgeois proudly took the 
title of squire. 

We can thus distinguish four degrees, which correspond 
roughly to military grades; the princes, dukes, and counts 
would be generals, the barons captains, the knights soldiers, 
the squires servants. But in this strange army, where the 
groups of which it was composed made war against each other 
and where wealth decided rank, the community of life finally 
attenuated differences to the point where all, from the general 
to the valet, began to feel themselves members of the same 
class. Then the nobility was definitely constituted, then it 
came to be a closed and isolated class. 

In the thirteenth century it became the custom to divide 
men rigorously into two classes, the nobles or gentlemen (well- 
born men) and the not-nobles, who were called in France 
customary men or subject-men (the word roturier was not used 
in the middle ages). And these classes became rigorously 
hereditary. The noble families refused to mix with descend- 
ants of not-noble families. A man who was not the son of a 
noble was not allowed the privilege of becoming a knight, 
even though he was rich enough to lead the life of a knight; 



32 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

the daughter of a not-noble could not marry a noble ; he who 
consented to marry her made a misalliance and thereby dis- 
honored himself; his wife would not be received in the noble 
families, and his children would not be treated by the nobles 
as equals. This heredity, which appears less marked in the 
documents of the preceding centuries, became the dominant 
trait of society down to the eighteenth century. In proportion 
as degrees between the nobles were effaced, the noblesse 
became more separated from the rest of the nation. It was in 
France and Germany that the aristocratic sentiment established 
itself most strongly. It was weakened in Spain, especially in 
the south, by contact with the rich inhabitants of the Moorish 
towns, and in Italy and perhaps in the south of France by the 
social influence of the merchants. In England, where habitual 
warfare ended early, nothing distinguished the squire from the 
rich peasant; the demarcation was established much higher, 
between the lords and the rest of the nation, and the privileged 
class was reduced to a high aristocracy of limited numbers. 

Chivalry. — The warlike society formed by the knights had 
its usages to which all were bound. The arms of the knight 
were difficult to handle; before bearing them, it was necessary 
to have served an apprenticeship. It was an honor to bear 
them ; before doing so one must have been declared worthy of 
this honor. No one was born a knight ; he was made a knight 
by a solemn ceremony; the king himself had to be made a 
knight. 

Every young noble began by learning the metier of a man 
of arms: to mount a horse, to handle arms, to climb a scaling- 
ladder. But he could serve his apprenticeship either in his 
father's house (which especially the sons of great families did) 
or in that of a stranger (apparently the more usual procedure). 
Ordinarily the father sent his son to a seigneur richer than 
himself, who took the young man into his service and brought 
him up; whence the expression nourri, often found in the 
chansons de gcste (the seigneur said: my nourri). Appren- 
ticeship was complicated with the service of squire; but with 
this service of a valet of arms was joined the service of a valet 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 33 

de chambre, a characteristic of chivalry customs. The squire 
assisted his seigneur in dressing and undressing; he brought 
in the courses and served at table; he made the beds. These 
duties, which the ancients regarded as debasing and imposed 
upon their slaves, were honorable in the eyes of the nobles of 
the middle ages (so had they been in the eyes of the Ger- 
mans: Tacitus made note of itj. During this period, which 
lasted from five to seven years, the young noble, called a 
squire or page (little seigneur), did not have the right to bear 
arms. 

When he had finished his apprenticeship, ordinarily at from 
eighteen to twenty years old, if he was rich enough to lead 
the life of a knight, he entered into knighthood by a martial 
ceremony, described in the chansons de geste. The young 
man first went through a bath, then donned the hauberk and 
helmet. A knight, sometimes his father, more often the sei- 
gneur who had brought him up, girded him with the sword 
which he was thenceforth to carry. This was called dubbing 
and was the essential act. Ordinarily the knight struck the 
young man a blow of the fist upon the back of the neck : this 
was the accolade. Afterward the new knight mounted his 
horse, took a lance, and did an exercise in galloping and in 
striking at a manikin prepared in advance: this was the 
quintain. Such was the ceremony of making a knight in the 
twelfth century. It was sometimes even reduced to a single 
act, the colee, the blow upon the neck: this was a means of 
avoiding expense. Beaumanoir speaks of an inquest which, 
to be valid, called for a fixed number of knights. As one 
was lacking to their number they forthwith made a knight of 
a gentleman present. One of them gave him a blow and 
said to him : "Be thou a knight. * ' 

Later the clergy introduced acts which turned the entrance 
into knighthood into a complicated religious ceremony.^ After 
a fast, the young man passed the night preceding the dubbing 

* There is an Italian formulary for blessing the sword which dates from the 
end of the elerenth century, but the usage did not spread until the thirteenth 
century. 



34 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

in prayers: this was the vigil of arms. In the morning he 
went to mass; the sword was laid upon the altar, as if to 
consecrate it to the service of God; the priest blessed it: 
" Lord, hear my prayers and deign to bless with Thy majestic 
hand this sword which Thy servant . . . desires to gird upon 
him." Then came a sermon, in which his duties toward the 
church, the poor and the widowed were recalled to the future 
knight. 

They usually chose for the ceremony either the great feast- 
days, especially Easter and Pentecost, or some exceptional 
event, the marriage or baptism of a prince ; or even the occa- 
sion of a battle. In that case they dubbed a whole troop of 
new knights at the same time. 

Only the rich became knights. Men of gentle rank who 
were poor did not care to bear the cost of the ceremony and 
the expense of the knight's life; they preferred to remain 
squires. There were consequently two sorts of squires, those 
who were not old enough and those who were not rich enough 
to become knights. In England, where knighthood was use- 
less, almost all gentlemen ceased to have themselves received 
into knighthood and were content to remain squires. 

Donjons, Castles and Manor-houses. — The noble of the 
middle ages was not only a warrior ; he made a fortress of his 
dwelling. Already the great Roman landlords had sometimes 
fortified their country houses ; but the custom does not appear 
to have become general in France until toward the tenth 
century. 

Of the old fortified houses of this time not one has been 
preserved. We know them only through rare remains and by 
scattered allusions in the writers. It seems that these strong- 
holds {firmitates) were made only of wood and earth. 
Immediately around the site where one wished to build he 
dug a wide, deep foss; the earth, thrown up on the inside, 
formed an artificial mound, the motte. For an outer defence 
square wooden posts were set in the ground and strongly 
bound together in such a way as to form a continuous palisade, 
which oftentimes was fortified from place to place by wooden 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 35 

towers. Within this enclosure were erected the wooden build- 
ings which served as lodgings for the servants, as stables, 
granaries and storehouses. Dominating all rose a large 
square tower, of wood, which was covered in case of siege with 
skins of fresh-slain beasts, to prevent its being set on fire : this 
was the donjon {dominium) , that is to say, the house of the 
master. The door was a little above the ground, and was 
reached only by a wooden stair which led down over the foss 
toward the open country. Such were the donjons of the north 
in the tenth century.' 

In the south of France the earth and wood were replaced 
by stone. Thick walls and square towers were built of 
masonry, in imitation of the Roman fortified towers {castra). 
Toward the twelfth century this custom became general in 
Europe. Then the square towers and right angles were 
replaced by round towers and rounded corners, more advan- 
tageous for defence. These constructions retained the Latin 
name castelliim (diminutive of castrum); in the south, castel\ 
in the north, chateau; in English, castle. Often they were 
also called plessis (palisade). 

The castle consisted of a group of fortifications. It was 
built on a scarped hill, on a rocky promontory, or on an arti- 
ficial height, a mottc, in a position to dominate the environs. 
It was always isolated, either by a continuous moat, which 
was filled with water when possible, or at least by a cut on 
the side of the mountain. Means of defence were multiplied. 
Coming from the open country one was first confronted by the 
barbican (devised after the thirteenth century), a fortification 
out beyond the moat. Next came the moat, which was often 
filled with water. Behind the moat stood a palisade called 
the barriers. Behind these barriers was a space encircling the 
enclosing wall, or curtains. This wall was sloping at the 
base, and was thick and high. Those who were besieged 
could move about at its summit, on a circular path constructed 
in its thickness, and hurl missiles through apertures called 

[^ Compare the illustration in Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire de l' Architecturi 
Fran^aise du XI* au XVI* Siecle, vol. iii. p. 64.] 



36 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

crenelles. They could also throw stones or pour molten pitch 
or boiling oil from galleries covered by open work which pro- 
jected out from the crenelles in a way to permit dropping such 
matter directly over the foot of the wall (down to the thirteenth 
century these galleries were of wood and were called hourds] 
they were replaced by machicoulis of stone). This enclosure 
protected all the buildings. 

To enter the castle in time of peace, one crossed the moat, 
no longer on a stair but on a drawbridge suspended by chains, 
the raising of which interrupted communication. Next one 
arrived before a massive door protected by the barrier and 
by the portcullis, an iron gate which had only to be let down 
to close the passage. Finally, on going through this vaulted 
door (which was guarded by a porter) one came within the 
enclosure to the bailey, a court surrounded by buildings 
(granaries, storerooms, chapel, kitchen, out-houses); in some 
great castles an entire village might be found there. It was 
to this place that the tenants of the neighborhood betook 
themselves and their goods and chattels in case of war. 

The principal structure was always the donjon, which had 
become a colossal tower of three or four stories. One reached 
the door by the perron, a stone stair. The donjon of 
Beaugency was about one hundred and thirty feet high and 
eighty in diameter, that of Coucy about two hundred and ten 
feet high and one hundred in diameter. Here the master 
lived, had his grand hall where he received guests,^ his room, 
rooms for his family, and his treasure. Underground he had 
his prison, dark, damp, dirty, into which prisoners were 
lowered by a ladder or rope. At the summit was the lodge 
where the watch kept lookout over the environs. The seigneur 
could defend himself in the donjon even after the enemy had 
forced the enclosing wall. 

Throughout Europe these fortresses became the homes of 
the seigneurs, so that the word castle has kept the meaning of 
a luxurious habitation. But only the rich could stand the cost 

• The greatest seigneurs sometimes had a special hall outside of the donjon, the 
palace (in German Pallas). 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 37 

of these massive buildings. In consequence at first there was 
a castle only where a seigneur lived who possessed a small 
town or several villages, so that in some countries the name 
chatellany was given later to a territory formed by the group 
of villages connected with a chateau. The number of castles 
grew with the increase of wealth, but down to the end of the 
middle ages there never were as many castles as there were 
knights. 

The nobles of less means contented themselves with a 
house made strong by thick walls, by a massive door which 
was sometimes defended by a machicoulis, and by high 
windows. This was the manor-house (from manere, to inhabit), 
which sufficed to resist a surprise. The nobles living in the 
towns — and they were numerous, especially in Italy, in Spain, 
and in the south of France — had strong houses built there 
which were very like the manor-houses of the country. 

These donjons, manors and strong houses all had thick 
high walls; winding stairs lighted by loopholes; and damp, 
somber rooms, where the light entered only through narrow 
openings. They were fortresses, not pleasant homes. Life 
in them was sad, especially during the long winter evenings. 
In fair weather people gladly remained in the orchard, outside 
of the enclosure. A scholar who loved the middle ages ' 
tried to count up the pleasures which a seigneur might enjoy. 
He found fifteen: hunting, fishing, fencing, jousting, playing 
chess, eating and drinking, listening to the songs of the 
jongleurs, watching bear-fights, receiving guests, talking with 
the ladies, holding his court, walking in the meadows, warm- 
ing himself, having himself cupped and bled, and watching the 
snow fall. These pleasures were scarcely enough to keep the 
nobles at home. When possible they visited the court of a 
prince, or they went on expeditions into distant countries. 
The nobles were as ready to move as the peasants were 
sedentary. Nevertheless, through their castle or their manor- 
house, they remained attached to the land, as is seen by their 
very names : from the twelfth century almost all surnames of 

* \Aon. Gautier, La ChevaUrie. 



SS THE FEUDAL REGIME 

nobles were land-names (Bouchard de Montmorency, Enguer- 
rand de Coucy).^ 

Homage and Fief. — It will be a matter of astonishment, 
perhaps, that in this description of feudal society no mention 
should have been made as yet of feudal relations. This is 
because the society of the middle ages did not necessarily 
imply feudality. It was indeed constituted in certain coun- 
tries (England before the eleventh century, Poland, Hungary) 
with the features just described but without any feudal char- 
acter; and for a long time there remained, even in the most 
strongly feudal countries, not only tenants but knights that 
were strangers to all feudal relationship. 

However, the warriors of the middle ages did not live 
independent of each other. As early as the capitularies of 
Charlemagne we see some who were attached, probably for 
life, to a chief who led them to war. The chief was already 
called seigneur, the men vassals (vvhich seems to have meant 
servants). These names were to go down through the middle 
ages. The seigneur was always a rich personage, a dignitary 
or a great landowner. He equipped, fed, kept, perhaps even 
paid, a troop of knights and squires who served him as social 
companions and as body-guards.^ The seigneur and his men 
lived together in the same hall, ate together, and went on 
expeditions together. The vassal was really a servant: he 
waited on his seigneur at table; he had to obey him and to 
follow him everywhere ; in battle it was his duty to give up 
his life to protect him. But this position of servant was 
mingled with a sentiment of comradeship which, without 
effacing distances, created a close relation of mutual devotion ; 
a relation which was symbolized by the oath the vassal took 
on entering the service of the seigneur. 

* These names naturally took the form de ; whence the presumption that the 
"particle," as it is called {de in the Romance languages, von in German), is a 
mark of nobility. This is a double error. There were, even in the sixteenth 
century, knights who had only the patronymic; and on the other hand thousands 
of not-nobles were called by the name of a domain or village. 

* In the chansons de geste this troop is called the maisnie (household) of the 
seigneur. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 39 

This regime, to which the documents of the ninth century 
allude, is also that which the chansons de geste describe, 
although much later (twelfth and thirteenth centuries). 
Whether it still existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries we 
can neither affirm nor deny; the warriors did not write much, 
and the acts — if there ever were any — of the noble lay fami- 
lies have not come down to us. Consequently the origin of 
feudality has remained a matter for inconclusive discussions. 
One thing seems certain, that from the tenth century it was 
an established usage in France to pay the vassal no longer in 
money or produce, but by giving him a domain — a domain 
provided with tenants. This was not a new kind of gift; it 
was the beneficiutn. No other name is employed in the Latin 
acts, in Germany and in Italy, down to the end of the eleventh 
century. In France appears the word fet'um or feodum (fief); 
the first examples known to be authentic are from the beginning 
of the tenth century. In eastern France the domain given by 
the seigneur was called a cliasemc7it [casamentuni, an establish- 
ment). Thereafter the vassal, instead of remaining near his 
seigneur, established himself upon the domain he had received ; 
but he continued to be his man. It is not proved that every 
vassal necessarily received a fief, even in the twelfth century. 
But at least no one could receive a fief without becoming the 
vassal of him who gave it, and almost all vassals possessed a 
fief. 

As in the time of Charlemagne the vassal bound himself to 
the seigneur by a solemn act, for one was not born a vassal; 
he became one, and he had to become one to be able to enjoy 
the fief. This is why the ceremony creating vassalage was 
preserved through the centuries: it served to declare the right 
of the seigneur. The old ceremonial seems to have been very 
much the same in all countries. The future vassal presented 
himself before his seigneur to be, bareheaded and without 
arms. He knelt before him, put his hands in the hands of the 
seigneur and declared himself his man. The seigneur kissed 
him on the mouth and lifted him to his feet. Such was the 
ceremony of homage. It was accompanied by an oath : the 



4© THE FEUDAL REGIME 

vassal swore, with his hand upon relics or upon the Bible, to 
remain faithful to the seigneur; that is to say, to fulfil the 
duties of a vassal. This was the act of fidelity, or fealty. 
Homage and fealty were two distinct acts: the one was an 
engagement, the other an oath; but, as there never was 
homage without fealty, the two were finally confounded. 

As a recompense for this engagement, the seigneur ceded 
to the vassal the possession of a fief which belonged to him : 
this was ordinarily a piece of land ; it could be any sort of 
object or lucrative privilege. The seigneur transferred his 
right by a solemn act: he put the vassal in possession of the 
fief by giving him a bit of straw, or a stick, or a lance, or a 
glove, which symbolized the object transferred. This was 
called investiture (invest signified to put in possession of). 
What the seigneur transferred was not the ownership of the 
fief, but only the usufruct ; legally he remained owner. The 
contract bound only the contracting parties and was valid 
only during their life. At the death of the vassal, the fief 
reverted to the seigneur; at the death of the seigneur, the 
vassal could keep the fief only by engaging himself anew to 
the new seigneur. 

It seems that at first the seigneur, on the death of the 
vassal, made use of his right to take back the fief in order to 
give it to whomever he pleased. The heroes of the chansons 
de geste often proceeded in this manner, and we find exam- 
ples of life fiefs even in the twelfth century. But the custom 
that the son should enter into the condition of his father was 
so strong in the middle ages that the seigneurs resigned them- 
selves to allowing their vassals to bequeath their condition to 
their sons. Thus the heredity of fiefs was established; or to 
speak more exactly, what became hereditary was the right of 
contracting vassalship toward the seigneur of the fief. The 
fief itself never became hereditary, since the seigneur remained 
its legal owner; the contract for the usufruct never ceased to 
be for life: it had to be renewed with each generation of 
vassals, with each generation of seigneur. It was merely the 
right to renew this contract that became hereditary; but in 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 41 

practice this was equivalent to heredity of possession. This 
evolution was already almost accomplished, in France, at the 
end of the tenth century; it was confirmed, in Lombardy, by 
an edict of King Conrad II, in 1037; it was prolonged, in 
Germany, into the thirteenth century. 

Feudal Obligations. — The fief was not given gratuitously. 
It imposed upon the vassal certain obligations toward the 
seigneur. These obligations always rested upon the same 
general conception, formulated everywhere and at all times in 
the same terms; the applications alone varied. 

Above all, the vassal owed homage and fealty, the formal 
act by which he avowed himself the man of the seigneur and 
swore fidelity to him. This he owed on taking possession of 
the fief; he also owed it each time the seigneur was replaced 
by another: it was called taking up the fief. If he refused the 
ceremony he disavowed the seigneur, and by that lost his 
right to the fief (he was said to forfeit). He must declare to 
the seigneur for what fief he became his man : this was the 
avowal of fief. If the fief was composed of several objects, he 
must enumerate them all. If there was doubt as to what the 
fief included, he owed the seigneur a showing (or view), which 
amounted to a descent upon the place. If through bad faith 
he concealed a part of the fief, he lost his right to all of it. 
These oral formalities were replaced, especially after the thir- 
teenth centur)-, by a written enumeration, called avowal and 
enumeration of fief. 

On taking up the fief, the vassal accepted the negative 
obligations of a usufructuary toward the owner. He pledged 
himself (often by an express formula) to maintain and guar- 
antee the fief: to maintain it, that is to say, not to let it lose 
its value, not to change its condition, not to take away a 
part of it (or, as they said, abridge it) ; to guarantee it, that is 
to say, to be ready always to recognize the right of the owner 
and to defend it against third parties. 

On swearing fidelity, the vassal pledged himself to do the 
seigneur no wrong, to attack neither his person, nor his goods, 
nor his honor, nor his family. Acts of homage are often found 



41 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

in which the vassal swore to respect ' ' the life and limbs ' ' of 
the seigneur. These negative obligations seem to have been 
reciprocal. "The sire," says Beaumanoir, "owes faith and 
loyalty to his man as much as the man to his seigneur. ' ' The 
seigneur and the vassal owed each other mutual affection. 
Neither permitted himself any hostile act toward the other. 
The seigneur, then, should not attack nor insult his vassal, nor 
seduce his wife or daughter. If he did, the vassal could release 
himself from his seigneur and at the same time keep the fief. 
The rupture was marked by an act which was the contrary of 
investiture; the vassal threw down the straw or the glove: 
this was the defy (breaking of faith). 

The positive duties of the vassal were sometimes included 
in a single word, service; sometimes analyzed in a formula 
which appears as early as the tenth century: aid and counsel 
{auxilium and consilium). 

Aid was above all military: the vassal was the soldier of 
the seigneur ; he must aid him in his wars ; it was for that 
indeed that he received his fief Certain formulas for swearing 
homage even say it expressly: the vassal swore to serve the 
seigneur "against all men and women who may be alive or 
dead." This obligation, doubtless unlimited at first (it still 
appears so in the cJiansons de geste), grew to be specific as well 
as limited, and several services came to be distinguished : ost 
and chevauchee ^ was the obligation to accompany the seigneur, 
either on his expeditions {osf), or on his incursions into hostile 
territory {chevauchee). This service, especially in the thirteenth 
century, was reduced as to distance and as to duration: the 
vassal did not follow the seigneur (at least at his own expense) 
save within certain limits, often a very small region ; he served 
him only up to the time fixed by custom, usually forty days. 
Estage^ was the obligation to do garrison duty in the castle 
of the seigneur, sometimes alone, sometimes with his family. 
Also the vassal was under the obligation to place his own 

[* In the Latin, exercitiis, or hostis, and cavalcata^ or expeditio, equitatio, 
equitatus.'\ 

[' In the Latin, stagium.'\ 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 43 

castle at the disposition of the seigneur when he demanded it; 
for this reason his castle was said to be swearable and sur- 
renderable/ and it was often stipulated, especially in the thir- 
teenth century, that the vassal must give it up to the seigneur 
"either when he was peaceably disposed or when he was in 
anger, when he had a great or a small force." The seigneur 
could put a garrison in the castle; but he must give it back 
in the condition in which he received it, and seize nothing 
in it except " straw and hay." 

Aid was also, though accessorily, a subvention in produce 
or in money, due by the vassal in certain fixed cases. Ordi- 
narily the vassal on receiving investiture made a gifl, which 
was regulated by custom. Often it was some object symboliz- 
ing vassalage: a lance, a gold or silver spur, a pair of gloves; 
about Orleans it was a horse, the roncin de sennce; in Guienne, 
a sum of money, the sporla. Ordinarily at each change of 
vassal and sometimes at each change of seigneur, there was 
due the seigneur an indemnity (the 7- c lief ox rachat), which was 
very heavy in the north of France (one year's revenue) and 
heavier still when the new vassal was only a collateral heir of 
his predecessor. Likewise if the vassal sold his fief, the pur- 
chaser must have the transfer approved by the seigneur and 
must pay him a right of sale (the quint), which sometimes 
amounted to three years' revenue. 

The seigneur had the right to make his vassals contribute 
to some of his exceptional expenses. This was also aid, called 
in certain regions aid in four cases. These cases varied from 
one region to another; sometimes indeed there were more or 
less than four. The most usual were the ransom of the 
seigneur if he was made prisoner, his departure for a crusade, 
the marriage of his daughter, the knighting of his son. Such 
aid was due from the vassals who were nobles, but they did 
not pay it with their own money; they levied it upon the 
tenants of their domain. 

The seigneur could require his vassal to entertain him, 

[' In the Latin, jurabile et reddibiU ; that is, to be sworn into scmce and 
given up.] 



44 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

together with his escort or his hunting equipage : this was the 
right of gite'^ {alberga in the south of France). It was often 
replaced by an indemnity. Also, in the thirteenth century, 
it was strictly defined. Thus, in Guienne, the possessor of 
Sommieres must serve to his seigneur, the duke of Acquitaine, 
when he came, a repast for himself and ten knights; the repast 
to consist of pork, beef, cabbage, roast chickens and mustard. 
He himself must wait on the duke in scarlet leggins with spurs 
of gold. Another vassal had to receive six of the hunters 
accompanying the duke, give them bread, wine, and meat, 
and lead them into the forest the following day. 

Counsel, or court service, obliged the vassal to go to the 
seigneur and advise with him in perplexing matters. The 
seigneur called all his vassals to his court at the same time. 
The obligation to comply with such calls was often limited to 
three assemblies, held ordinarily at the time of the great 
feast-days: Easter, Pentecost, Christmas. The assembly of 
vassals formed an attendance of honor for the feasts given by 
the seigneur on the occasion of his marriage, or of that of 
his children, and of the entry of his sons into knighthood; 
it satisfied his vanity by enhancing the show of the cere- 
mony. It served as a political council in grave affairs of 
interest to the seigneury, such as war, peace, or the changing 
of customs. It served as a tribunal [placitum) to adjust 
differences between the vassals of the seigneur; the seigneur 
convoked and presided over the court, and the court pro- 
nounced sentence. To judge in the vassals' courts was not a 
right, but an obligation which brought no reward and which 
might draw the judger into a duel with the loser. Also it was 
a strict obligation : neither could the vassal refuse to sit, nor 
could the seigneur refuse to convoke the court. This would 
be a " default of right " (denial of justice) which would release 
the vassal from his oath of fidelity. 

Women and Children in the Feudal R6gime. — It seemed that 
there was no room in feudality either for women or for children, 
since the contract of vassalage could bind only warriors. But 
[' In the Latin, gistum.] 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 45 

the influence of property and of inheritance was stronger than 
logic ; the seigneur was even more a landowner than head of 
a group. A child or a woman could inherit a great domain 
that was distributed in fiefs to vassals, and thus become the 
seigneur of these vassals. 

The minor not being able to exercise his right himself, the 
nearest relative on the paternal side took the bail, that is to 
say, possession of the domain. He received the revenues and 
occupied the place of the seigneur; he even bore the title. 
At first also he was charged with the ward of the minor, and 
with his education. But, as under this arrangement the holder 
of the bail was also the child's heir and so subject to the 
temptation to gain possession of the inheritance, the usage was 
established of giving the ward of the minor to the nearest 
relative on the maternal side, who would have no interest in 
his death. On arriving at his majority (from fourteen to 
twenty-one, according to the region), the young man had 
himself made a knight and received then the homage of the 
vassals. The daughter inheriting a seigneury, if she was of age, 
exercised the seigneurial rights attached to the possession of 
the domain ; the vassals owed her homage and service. There 
are examples of women who governed their seigneury in 
person, presided over their feudal court, and even fought. 
The feudal language had no terms to designate the woman 
seigneur; she was called by a Latin name, dame [dotnina, mis- 
tress); in Spanish, Dona. 

Women and children had entered feudality as heirs of 
seigneurs ; they also entered it as heirs of vassals. When a 
vassal died leaving sons who were minors, the seigneur orig- 
inally had the right to take back the fief in order to give it to 
a man capable of rendering service; but from the eleventh 
century he only took it, with the ward of the child, to the end 
of the minority (this was seigneurial bail, which was later re- 
placed by the bail of the relatives of the minor). On arriving at 
his majority, the young man entered into possession of the fief. 
The right of daughters was established with more diflficulty. 
A woman could not acquit herself of the services of the fief. 



46 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

Consequently there were countries where fiefs were not trans- 
mitted to daughters: they passed to the son, even if he was 
younger, or to more distant relatives . But the habit of treating 
daughters as heirs was so strong, especially in the south of 
France, that finally, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, it 
applied even to fiefs. Women received them as inheritances, 
even as dowries; they became vassals, as they could become 
seigneurs. Of the early exclusion there remained only a privi- 
lege in favor of male collateral heirs. 

For the service of the fief the woman had to furnish a 
substitute. For her marriage she was in law bound to secure 
the consent of the seigneur, and, in certain countries (in Spain, 
at Jerusalem), the seigneur presented to the heiress of a fief 
two or three knights between whom she had to choose her 
husband. 

The Clergy in the Feudal R6gime — The clergy kept its old 
organization, which was based upon a hierarchy of dignities 
and absolute obedience of inferiors to superiors. Even in the 
epochs of greatest confusion, when the " spirit of the time " 
had most profoundly penetrated the clergy, the church never 
adopted a feudal principle into its organization ; never did an 
inferior do homage to a superior or receive his function as a 
fief. The clerics, like the women, should remain strangers to 
feudality, since the religious law forbade them to bear arms. 
And nevertheless, like women, the clergy entered into the 
feudal regime, at least the higher clergy. As for the lower 
clergy, the parish priests, servitors of their bishop or of the 
patron of their church, and the monks, subordinated to their 
abbot, remained in close and uncontrolled subjection, similar 
to the dependence of tenants upon their seigneur. 

The higher clergy possessed great domains arising from 
donations that had accumulated through centuries; for in all 
the Christian countries the lay landholders sought to gain the 
favor of the saint who was patron of this church or of that 
abbey, in order that he might intercede for them in heaven. 
They consequently donated — and especially bequeathed — to 
the saint or to his church, *' for the redemption of their sins " 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 47 

or "for the salvation of their soul," a part of their "earthly 
goods," often some pieces of land, sometimes entire villages. 
There was not a bishopric, an abbey, a chapter of canons or a 
collegiate church that had not thus become a great land- 
holder. Bishops, abbots and canons, thanks to the revenues 
of these domains, found themselves in the position of rich 
seigneurs. Like the lay seigneurs they had to have an escort 
of soldiers, for their honor and defence ; wherefore they dis- 
tributed a part of the domain of the church in fiefs and acquired 
vassals who owed them homage and service. 

From the time of Charlemagne the prelates (bishops and 
abbots), being considered as high officials, owed homage to 
the king and were obliged to lead their men to the army. 
This custom was preserved in the north of the kingdom of 
France, and was so strongly established in the kingdom of 
Germany that the prelates came to consider their ecclesiastical 
dignity itself as a fief which they held from the king; the king 
invested them with it by giving to them a standard, as he did 
to the lay seigneurs. 

The prelates thus formed a superior class which was part of 
the high feudal nobility. In all Christian countries, the clergy, 
being celibate, could not be recruited by heredity; but rarely 
was any but a cleric of noble birth chosen to be bishop or 
abbot. The ecclesiastical dignities thus served to provide for 
the younger sons of noble families. Many kept the habits of 
their youth after taking orders ; they remained hunters, drinkers 
and warriors, like that archbishop of Mainz who, in order to 
avoid shedding blood, fought with a club. In general, all 
that the clergy could obtain from these sons of warriors was 
to prevent them from arming as knights. 

The convents had need of defence against the knights of 
their neighborhood, who did not always allow themselves to 
be intimidated by excommunication. Many made an agree- 
ment with some seigneur who took it upon himself to defend 
them in return for redevances to be levied upon their tenants; 
he was called the guardian or advocate {advocatus) ; in German, 
Voigt. The institution goes back to the Carolingians. Ordi- 



4^ THE FEUDAL REGIME 

narily the advocate burdened, rather than defended, the 
domain ; the acts of convents are often full of complaints 
against the advocates. Tlie bishoprics sometimes had a lay 
defender of this kind, the vidame (vice-seigneur). 

The " Ministeriales." — The richest seigneurs — kings, 
princes and prelates — kept about them a troop of armed 
servants. They were called in Latin ministeriales ^ servitors 
{ministerium signified service, function); in German, Dienst- 
vtannen (men for service). But serving a great seigneur was 
an honorable occupation, which made of these servants a class 
intermediate between the nobles and the people ; and the 
household of a great seigneur formed a complete little society, 
in which the services much resembled public functions. 

The ministeriales had charge of the household offices ; they 
directed the services into which the care of the house was 
divided. There were always at least four of these offices at 
a court:' the table, directed by the dapifer (seneschal, 
Trucksess) ; the cellar, directed by the buticularius (cup-bearer, 
Schenk) ; the stable and forage by the comes stabuli (constable, 
Marschalk)\ the chamber (dress and provisions), entrusted to 
the earner arius (chamberlain, Kdmmerer). Other great officers 
found at the richest courts were the first huntsman, the 
forester, and the master of the kitchens. Besides, the artisans 
of the seigneur — tailors, shoemakers, armorers, bakers, and so 
on — were grouped, according to their kind of work, into 
minis teria (trades), and each trade had a ministerialis at its 
head. At the same time the ministeriales performed the 
duties of knights: they escorted their master, accompanied him 
to war, and guarded his castles. 

The institution languished in France, where the minis- 
teriales were soon confounded with the vassals. In Germany, 
on the contrary, down to the end of the thirteenth century, 
the Dienstfna?i7ien formed an important class ; they were the 
strength of the king and of the prelates. They kept the mark 
of their origin (their ancestors had been chosen among the 
serfs of the master). Even become knights, they still remained 
* These four offices are mentioned from the ninth century. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 49 

serfs: they were called unfreie Ritter (unfree knights), and in 
acts they signed after the free men. They could not acquire, 
nor sell, nor bequeath, nor marry without the consent of their 
master; they were subject to rights of mortmain, like serfs. 
Those of the same master formed a closed society. They 
wore garments of the same color (the master's color); they 
married among themselves ; they were not to fight against 
each other; they must have all their differences judged by the 
master's domestic tribunal, which was made up of their com- 
panions and which judged according to the particular usages 
of the master's court {Hofrecht). They did not have the right 
to present themselves at the tribunal of the free men, where 
judgment was governed by the law of the country [Lattdrecht). 
Also their condition had become hereditary: the master could 
no longer plunge their children back into servitude; he had to 
keep them at his court, give them an office or support 
them. 

Little by little the seigneur drew the oflfices away from the 
Dtenstmannen, who became exclusively knights. He accus- 
tomed himself to giving each of them a benefice, that is to say, 
the usufruct of a domain. Then, toward the end of the 
thirteenth century, benefices became confounded with fiefs and 
the Dicnstmamien were like vassals. Those of the king even 
took the title of Freiherr (free seigneur), equivalent to 
baron. But before this time the Dienstmannen grouped about 
the princes had developed at the German courts a knightly 
society that was accustomed to conform to scrupulously exact 
rules of conduct. These constituted what were called court 
manners, courtoisic {Jiofische Sitte). The most original trait 
in these manners was the respect for ladies, for the wives of 
the seigneurs; it resembles much the respect of the servant for 
the mistress, since it was not extended to the simple wives of 
the Dienstmannen. It was addressed to rank, not to sex.^ 

' The origin of gallantry is a very obscure question. It was unknown to the 
compi>sers of the chansons de gestc. It appears, much mingled with sensuality, 
in the poetry of the troubadours of the south of France and in the poems of the 
Gallic cycle in the twelfth century. From France it penetrated into the German 
poems. It is also found among the Moors of Spain, but with a sentiment of com- 



5© THE FEUDAL RfiGIME 

Complication of Feudal Relations. — The original relations 
between knights rested upon ' ' fealty ' ' , the reciprocal 
devotion of the seigneur and his men. They could subsist 
only in a rudimentary society made up of groups isolated 
from one another, each consisting of a seigneur and his 
vassals. It was necessary to be personally devoted to one's 
seigneur and vassal to him alone ; the essential thing was 
vassalage. But this regime was thrown into confusion by the 
creation of hereditary fiefs. Devotion gave place to a con- 
tract. The vassal, thanks to the fief, became materially in- 
dependent of the seigneur, detached himself from him, and 
began to consider the fief as the essential, vassalage as a 
charge accessory to the fief, an onerous burden which he 
labored to diminish by replacing general fidelity with special 
services. The fief, become hereditary, passed into the hands 
of strangers who were indifferent to the seigneur and became 
his vassals only to preserve the fief. 

It happened then that the same noble came to be at the 
same time the vassal of several seigneurs. He could not serve 
them all, especially if they made war upon each other. It 
was therefore necessary to introduce reserves : on taking up his 
fief the vassal reserved his duties toward the seigneur he had 
already; he swore to serve the new seigneur, " except for the 
fidelity due to N. and N.," or to serve him "against all 
except N. and N." In place of absolute devotion, there were 
only conditional devotions. In the twelfth century, there came 
to be a distinction made between liege homage, which bound 
the vassal to unlimited service, and plain homage, which the 
vassal gave standing and armed and which bound him to only 
a limited service. 

The fief soon lost its character as an establishment given 
to a faithful supporter by way of recompense. Not only lands, 
or functions (as with the nimisteriales), were given in fief, but 
all sorts of lucrative rights: redevances, rights of banality, of 
justice, of market, of tithe, and so on even to the right of 

passion for the weak sex, which appears foreign to the gallantry of the French 
middle ages. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 5 1 

taking the swarms of bees that might be found in the woods. 
Even money pensions came to be given. All these objects 
and rights were divided and accorded in portions : the half of 
a domain was given in fief, a room in a castle, a part of an 
enclosing wall, a quarter of the justice.* 

Homage, being no longer an absolute promise of devotion 
but simply a contract, became an habitual process of establish- 
ing a bond between two nobles. An allodial seigneur made 
himself the vassal of another seigneur; by a fiction he ceded 
him his domain ; the other, become the legal proprietor, gave 
him back this same domain as a fief and received the man as 
a vassal: this was called "taking back a freehold in fief". 
The practice was not new, but in becoming general it estab- 
lished between the seigneurs a gradation of nominal dependen- 
cies. Inversely, the vassal gave a portion of his fief in fief to 
other nobles (the elder brother to his younger brothers). In 
this way rear vassals sprang up, who in their turn could have 
vassals. In strict lawfi the consent of the seigneur was neces- 
sary for these sub-infeudations, for they diminished the value 
of his fief. The old Carolingian functionaries, the dukes and 
counts, become vassals of the king because of the transforma- 
tion of their functions into fiefs, found vassals for themselves 
in the principal seigneurs of their province. Thus was created 
a very complicated network of feudal bonds, reaching from 
the king down to the squires who were possessors of a little 
fief. 

This complication was doubtless almost as old as the 
feudal regime, for we find the superposition of fiefs and the 
reserve of fidelity in the oldest detailed document in which the 
word fief appears, an act of 954, in barbaric Latin mixed with 
Catalan words: "I, Raymond, viscount of Cerdagne, I con- 
cede to you, Peter Raymond, viscount of Urgel, and his wife 
Sibyl, the castle of Saint Martin; and I give you Ermengaud 
with the fief that he holds from the castle of Saint Martin, and 
with its knights. Likewise I accord you the castle of Mirales 

' I hare found in Burgundy "the third part of the half of two parts of the 
tithe of N.' 



52 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

and Cheralt ; and I give you Berengar of Aragal with the fief 
that he holds from the viscounty and its knights. . . . And for 
this gift, I, Peter Raymond, and my wife Sibyl, I recognize 
that we are yours firmly against all men and women, except 
the count of Urgel, that we will aid thee from our domain 
and with our counsel to hold, guarantee and defend against 
all men and women, by straight faith without fraud." 

It is this network of feudal bonds which has been called the 
"feudal hierarchy." The name is improper; it would assume 
a series of fiefs and vassals, occupying all the territory, and 
regularly superposed in grades one above the other as in a 
hierarchy of functionaries. This is the regime which the 
authors of the Assizes of Jerusalem ^ seem to describe. Per- 
haps it really did exist in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, where the 
knights, who had come as conquerors, were able to create a 
regular organization based upon a general principle. Nothing 
like this is found in any country of Europe. 

In Germany, where they felt the need of classifying the 
knights who accompanied the king on his expeditions into 
Italy, an attempt was made to range the nobles in categories, 
called bucklers. In the first was the king alone; in the 
second, the princes of the church who were vassals of the 
king; in the third, the lay princes, thrown into this rank 
because they held fiefs from the princes of the church ; in the 
fourth, the barons, and even the counts when they were vassals 
of a lay prince; in the fifth, the free knights who were vassals 
of a baron; in the sixth and last, the Dienstmannen. Each 
rank was sharply distinguished; no one could be in two 
bucklers at the same time. The noble who became the vassal 
of'his equal passed into an inferior rank ; a prince, on becoming 
the vassal of another, went down to the rank of baron. 

It seems that in Germany homage had best preserved its 
original meaning. In France the nobles knew nothing of this 
hierarchy. The feudal bond had ceased there to establish a 
relation of superiority of the seigneur to the vassal. As early 
as the eleventh century, the count of Anjou, having conquered 

' This is where the old feudists sought the picture of the feudal organization. 



THE NOBLES AND THE HIGHER CLERGY 53 

the count of Blois, despoiled him of his county of Touraine 
and had it given to him in fief by his prisoner (whose vassal 
he thus became). In France any one could be at the same 
time both seigneur and vassal. The feudal bond united only 
lands. 



Ill 

' USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 

,< AUodB, Fiefs and Tenures. — The most apparent character- 
istic of the feudal regime, that which has given it its name, 
was the way of possessing land. 

The normal mode -of possession down to the nitlth century 
had been the allod, fully-owned property with no condition 
and with absolute right of alienation. Btft from the time the 
landlords distributed their lands, in tenures to peasants, in 
fiefs to knights, there were three modes of possession: the 
allod ; the fief, usufruct on condition of noble service ; ^ and the 
tenure (censive, villain, or servile), usufruct on condition of 
the payment of redevances. Following the custom of the 
middle ages these possessions became hereditary, and there 
were three sorts of inheritance. These rights of possession 
could exist together, superimposed upon each other: a given 
land was at the same time possessed as censive, as fief, as 
allod, by three different owners, ^ — without counting the heredi- 
tary intendant, who also held certain irrevocable rights over it. 
In this sense it is inexact to speak of allods, fiefs, and cen- 
sives; we should say possessions in allodium, in fief, in censive. 
But finally the condition of the possessor became attached to 
the land, in such a way that each estate took on an indelible 
quality which was imposed upon new possessors. These lands 

^ During the whole of the middle ages, one finds examples of not-noble fiefs; 
and it is not proved even that the fief may not have begun by being a not-noble 
tenure. Here it is a question only of the most general usage. 

2 There were besides several superposed rights of fief, every time (and this was 
the usual case) that there were several grades of feudatories. 

S4 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 55 

were then called censives, villainages, fiefs, allods*; and as the 
fief could only be held by nobles, a distinction came to be 
made between noble and not-noble lands. The not-noble 
lands were the tenures of the villains; the noble lands were 
the reserves exploited by the noble possessors of fiefs or allods. 
A noble, on acquirmg a censive, no longer made noble land 
of it; a villain, in possessing a fief (when the custom permitted), 
did not take away its quality of noble land. 

An allod could be converted into a fief by the owner ;^ a 
fief could with difficulty be converted into an allod. Conse- 
quently allods became more and more rare. They finally (in 
the thirteenth century) became so rare, especially in the north 
of France, that the allod was considered an exceptional and 
improbable method of ownership. It was sometimes called 
free allod, and was said to owe nothing to any one and to be 
held from God alone ; ^ but its existence was admitted only on 
formal proofs, for the presumption was that all land was either 
a fief or a tenure : ' * No land without a seigneur. ' ' In England 
the jurisconsults said there was only one owner, the king. In 
the south of France allods survived in much larger numbers. 
When the king of England, in 1273, took a census of his 
duchy of Guienne, many nobles declared that they owed no- 
thing to any one, or even that they did not have to answer 
the questions of the duke. 

Law of Inheritance. — Land was transmitted according to 
two opposed systems of inheritance. By the old regime, 
common to the Roman law and to Germanic usages, property 
was divided equally among the children, without distinction of 
sex. This rule was continued for allods, noble or not-noble, 
and was extended to all not-noble lands (these were encum- 
bered by charges, but the inheritor, whoever he might be, 
could acquit them). When there were no children, a distinc- 

1 The language of the middle ages, which was not rigorous, sometimes 
applied the name allod to fiefs, to indicate either that they were hereditary or that 
they were subject to slight charges. 

' See above, p. 51. 

* The famous "king of Yvetot " was simply an allodiary. 



56 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

tion was made between own possessions — the family inherit- 
ance — which should return to the branch from which they 
came, and the acquired possessions, which the owner could 
dispose of as he liked. Such was the customary law. 

For the inheritance of fiefs, on the other hand, the right of 
the heirs was thwarted by the right of the seigneur. In rigor- 
ous logic, the fief should be indivisible and its possessor should 
be capable of service : it passed undivided to the eldest male 
heir ; the feudal law was characterized by primogeniture and 
the exclusion of women. But the principle yielded — more or 
less according to the region — before the general custom : the 
younger sons were allowed to share with the eldest (this was 
parage), the daughters to inherit in default of sons. There 
merely remained a larger portion for the eldest son and the 
preference of male over female heirs of the same degree. 

Wars and Tourneys. — Every noble was a warrior. Unless 
he was bound by some special agreement he had the right to 
make war upon whomsoever he would. ^ Thus it was that in 
the oaths of fidelity the contracting parties promised to respect 
each other's "life and limbs." This condition (which we 
improperly call private warfare) was the common law. At the 
most, it was considered a duty to begin it only after a formal 
declaration. 

War was declared by sending a symbol to one's enemy, 
ordinarily a glove : this was the sign that faith was broken (the 
challenge). Sometimes a threat was sufficient, or they even 
began actual violence forthwith. The families of the two 
adversaries were by law drawn into the war, for relatives as far 
as the seventh degree owed each other aid. In the thirteenth 
century, Beaumanoir queries whether there can be war between 
two brothers: no, he concludes, if they have the same father 
and the same mother, since then both have the same lineage ; 
yes, if they have only one common parent, for then each will 
have his family for him. Those who had vassals convoked 
them for service, and the campaign began. 

^ On the origins (probably Germanic) of the right of war, already recognized 
in the Capitularies, see vol. I of the Histoire Generale, in chapter vii. 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 57 

The feudal wars read very monotonously.' Mounted war- 
riors fell upon the domain of the enemy, carried away flocks, 
cut down trees, burned harvests, set fire to villages, maltreated 
and sometimes massacred the peasants. The object was to 
take the castles and the persons of the adversaries. This was 
done either by surprise or by regular operations: a battle or 
a siege. For siege ^ purposes they employed antique machines, 
perfected in the Orient. A battle was a contest between two 
masses of knights thrown against each other at full trot; the 
chief aim was to unsaddle the adversary and hurl him to the 
ground; the squires, who remained behind the combatants, 
then rushed up to seize the unsaddled opponents and take 
possession of their horses. The prisoners, despoiled of their 
arms, were led away, usually tied on a horse. The victor 
kept them in his castle, often in chains or even locked in an 
underground cell, until they bought their freedom at the price 
set (the ransom). Castles also were ransomed. 

War became an amusement and a trade. The game was 
not as dangerous as it seems. Orderic Vital, in telling of the 
battle of Bremule (i 1 19), adds: " Of the nine hundred knights 
that fought, I know that only three were killed ; in fact, they 
were entirely covered with iron and . . . they mutually spared 
each other, seeking less to kill than to take each other cap- 
tive. ' ' In default of wars the knights arranged a tourney. They 
formed two troops, which met in the open field and, some- 
times with the usual arms, fought a battle as dangerous as 
real battles; in the tourney at Neuss (near Cologne), in 1240, 
sixty knights perished. In tourneys also prisoners were taken 
and ransomed . The business of ransoms was so lucrative that 
many knights, even seigneurs, extended their operations outside 
of the warrior society, upon merchants, bourgeois, and even 
clerics. They stopped them in the highways, made them 
prisoners, and tortured them, in order to secure a ransom. 

* The most lively descriptions are those of the chansons de geste, particularly 
Gprin le Loherain. 

' A detailed description of a siege (that of Chiteau-Gaiilard) can be found in 
VioUet-le-Duc, Dictiotmaire d' Architecture, under the words Si£:gk and Chateau. 



58 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

The Germans called these adventurers Raubritter (robber- 
knights). 

Peace and Truce of God ; Peace of the King. — This warlike 
regime was agreeable only to the knights ; it weighed upon the 
rest of the population. But since war was the common law, 
to have it stopped there had to be a special act, a peace, and 
to impose that peace a power capable of making it respected. 

From tlie end of the tenth century, the church tried to 
establish peace by pledging the knights to cease making war. 
The attempt began in the south of France by a series of pro- 
vincial synods. At first it was a question of protecting 
defenceless people, peasants, monks, ecclesiastics; whoever 
attacked them was to be excommunicated: this was the 
Peace of God. 

The Council of Toulouges (1041) went farther. It ordered 
that all wars be suspended during feast-days and Sundays, 
during Advent and Lent, and the second half of each week: 
this was the Truce of God. It was confirmed and extended 
to all Christian countries by the Council of Clermont (1095), 
which decreed the first crusade. This truce should have pro- 
cured about two hundred and forty days' peace every year and 
reduced war to one hundred and twenty days, but it does not 
appear that it was strictly observed. 

To apply the decisions of the councils there was created, 
in the eleventh century, for each diocese (at least in a part of 
France), a peace association directed by the bishop. It had 
its treasury, its tribunal, and even its peace army, formed chiefly 
of parishioners organized as militia and led by the parish 
priests. Of all these creations (to which scholars have given 
much attention) we find scarcely a trace at the end of the 
twelfth century. 

In countries where the prince was very strong, he pro- 
claimed peace and threatened with heavy fines or even with 
death whosoever should infringe it. Thus the peace of the 
duke reigned in Normandy, and the Norman princes established 
the same regime in England and in the Two Sicilies. The 
count of Barcelona made his peace respected in Catalonia, the 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 59 

count of Flanders in Flanders. In Germany, several emperors 
proclaimed the peace of the king, called also the peace of the 
land {Latidfrieden) ; Frederic Barbarossa caused an act of peace 
{Friedenbrief) to be drawn up ; but these peaces encountered 
habits that grew more and more inveterate, and war became 
the common law of Germany. As for the king of France, he 
was too weak to impose peace in his own domain, to say 
nothing of the rest of the country. Even Philip the Fair con- 
fined himself to forbidding wars and tourneys while he should 
be at war himself Peace, in the middle ages, was an excep- 
tional state. 

JuBtice. — Feudal society was not acquainted with justice 
that was the same for all. Justice, like peace, was not a 
common right; in the middle ages it was a privilege. There 
was a different justice and special courts for each class. The 
cleric was amenable to the courts of the church, the bourgeois 
to the tribunal of the town. Free men should go to the 
tribunal of the country, presided over by the count; but such 
assemblies ceased to be held in France from the tenth century, 
and in Germany, where they were kept up till the thirteenth 
century, their action became more and more restricted. Public 
tribunals were replaced by private tribunals : the tenant was 
judged in the seigneur's court,' a domestic tribunal kept by the 
intendant; the noble vassal, in the feudal court formed by an 
assembly of his peers. Custom, however, produced some rules 
which were common to all the lay courts. 

The procedure of the middle ages rested upon a conception 
opposed to that of the Roman law, which continued to be 
applied in the courts of the church. Roman justice was 
rendered sovereignly by the judge, in the name of society, in 
a public interest : the judge had to prosecute crimes and arrest 
suspects; before pronouncing sentence, he had to get light 
on the matter by gathering information, especially written 
proofs; he had to judge according to reason. The justice of 
the middle ages was rendered by the court, made up from the 

• On the character of the seigneurial tribunal, see above, pp. 18-20 ; on the 
feudal court, see above, p. 42. 



6o THE FEUDAL REGIME 

people of the region (in the feudal courts it was the peers, the 
equals of the parties, who were the judges) ; the president had 
no other role than that of directing the court and pronouncing 
sentence.' 

The court did not act in the public interest: it rendered a 
service to the parties ; the plaintiff must make a request for this 
service. Even in the matter of crimes, the court intervened 
only on the demand of the victim or of his relatives, and the 
criminal trial took the form of a process between the accuser 
and the accused. Both had to be treated equally: both were 
imprisoned, and the plaintiff who lost incurred the same penalty 
that otherwise the defendant would have had to undergo ; for 
the accused was the equal of the accuser. 

The court did not have to enlighten itself on the real truth 
of the affair, to seek out just how it had come about : it decided 
only on what the parties presented to it ; it must judge not 
according to equity and reason, but according to the forms 
established by custom. Justice was formalistic, like a strictly 
regulated game; the judges had only to maintain the rules, 
judge the throws, and proclaim the winner. Every trial con- 
sisted of several sacramental acts accompanied by consecrated 
phrases, which followed each other like the scenes of a drama. 
The petitioner (or accuser) asked for a day for the trial. 
When the day came the petitioner set forth his complaint and 
swore to it. The defendant immediately replied, word by 
word, and took oath. The witnesses swore in their turn. 
Then came the call, that is to say, the provocation ; next the 
duel; and finally, the sentence. A word or a movement 
that was contrary to the rules sufficed to condemn a suitor.^ 
At Lille, whoever during the oath moved his hand, which 
rested upon the Bible, lost his case. Particular care had to 
be taken with the words by which the procedure was begun, 

1 It cannot be said that the intendant, in the tribunals for tenants, always 
limited himself to this r61e, at least in France. Judgment by the tenants appears 
to have been the custom in Germany in the thirteenth century. 

2 The compiler of the custom of Normandy compares this procedure with the 
game "Now up, Bernard ! " in which the player must rise at the call of his name, 
under penalty of having his face daubed with charcoal. 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 6l 

for they decided on what ground the trial was to proceed. 
Whence the proverb : "A word once spoken cannot be 
recalled. " * 

In criminal matters, the oath of two witnesses brought 
condemnation upon the accused. The accused might allow 
the first witness to swear, but at the moment when the second 
knelt down and stretched out his hand to swear he must 
declare that he challenged him as a false witness and a 
perjurer. 

A case might be decided by proofs, by oaths, by battle, 
or by the Judgment of God. Proof was the ancient Roman 
procedure ; the oath was the barbaric procedure. The Usages 
of the County of Barcelona distinguishes them very clearly: 
' ' Proof is given by witnesses, or by written testimony, or by 
reasons, or by judgments. The oath is not a proof; but, in 
default of proof, the defendant or the plaintiff, whichever one 
the judge believes the more truthful and the more afraid to 
perjure, is put on his oath. " Proof demanded attention on the 
part of the judges, and the nobles regarded it as an insult to 
have their affirmation questioned. Consequently the court 
ordinarily preferred to remit its decision to the Judgment of 
God (ordeal) or to the duel. 

The Ordeal. — The ordeal was an ancient barbaric process 
which was accepted by the church. It was applied to parties 
that were not able to fight: especially to women, sometimes to 
peasants. Several of the tests employed in the ninth century 
(water, the cross, the morsel of bread) had passed out of use. 
The usual process, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was 
that by fire, under two forms : the defendant plunged his hand 
into a kettle of boiling water, or he carried red-hot irons in his 
hand. This iron was czW&d Juice {irom Judiciuju, judgment). 
The hand was wrapped up, then after a few days it was 
uncovered; if it was unimpaired, the patient had won. The 
church, which had regularized the Judgment of God, finally 
abolished it (at the Council of 12 15). 

' Tlie rigor of this procedure was softened by allowing the suitor to have 
counsel an^l to restrve thr right of changing his words. 



62 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

The Duel. — For men, for all the nobles at least, the normal 
issue of the trial was the duel, the appeal by battle. The 
defendant (the accused), instead of exculpating himself, pro- 
voked the complainant, or his witness. The trial was trans- 
formed into a war ; the court had no other role than to regulate 
its conditions and declare the result. 

The battle, like the rest of the procedure, consisted of a 
series of sacramental acts : the provocation (call) by the 
remission of the gage of battle, the choice of the day, measur- 
ing off the lists (ordinarily one hundred and twenty-five paces), 
the oath, the proclamation, the combat, the avowal by the 
conquered. The arms were minutely regulated: in the 
knights' courts they were the armor, the shield, and the 
sword ; in the courts for the not-nobles, the shield and the staff. 

The duel was the favorite procedure with the society of the 
middle ages. It was employed for peasants, it was permitted 
to the serfs of certain domains as a privilege. The women 
even and the infirm could have a champion fight in their stead. 

The duel served not only in cases of crime, but in suits 
concerning ownership or succession. It was even employed 
to decide questions of law. In the tenth century Otto I, in 
Germany, had two champions fight to decide whether the son 
should exclude grandsons who were his nephews from the 
succession. In the thirteenth century Alfonso of Castile had 
recourse to the duel to decide whether he ought to introduce 
Roman law into his kingdom. 

The duel, in the courts of nobles, was even a means for 
causing a judgment to be annulled. In principle, the justice 
of the middle ages knew no appeal: every judgment was 
irrevocable ; but the loser could declare the judgment false by 
provoking those who rendered it. If he won in this battle, the 
judgment was annulled. The duel served in the same way to 
throw out a witness. 

Confession, Penalties. — All this formalistic procedure was 
reserved for doubtful cases, in which the defendant denied the 
charge against him ; a condemnation was only obtained with 
great difficulty and at great risks to the accuser and his wit- 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 63 

nesses. The procedure was summary, on the contrary, against 
the delinquent taken in the act, — the testimony of those who 
seized him sufficed to have him condemned, — summary also 
against the delinquent who confessed his crime, especially if 
he was a stranger or vagabond. The temptation was therefore 
strong for the judge to urge the accused to confess by subject- 
ing him to torture. And thus the question was to become, at 
the end of the fifteenth century, a general custom.' 

The penalty was rigorously prescribed by custom, at least 
in the not-noble courts. The homicide was beheaded, the 
thief hanged, the murderer (assassin) was dragged on the 
hurdle and hanged. Women, in place of being hanged, were 
buried alive. If the criminal was dead, his body was executed; 
if he had fled, his effigy. The suicide was treated as the 
murderer of himself. If an animal killed a person, it was 
hanged or buried alive. 

Custom. — The society of the middle ages scarcely knew 
any other rule than custom. It had little idea of law estab- 
lished by a legislative power. On the very rare occasions 
when a prince felt the need of modifying the custom, he did it 
only after having convoked and consulted all the notables of 
the country. 

The custom differed from one region to another. "One 
would not find in the entire kingdom," says Beaumanoir, 
"two chatellanies that use, in every case, the same custom." 
It was not the same for the nobles, the bourgeois, the clerics, 
and the peasants ; and for this it was only the more respected, 
for it was the private property (the privilege) of each class. 
It was not written, it rested upon precedents conserved in 
the memory of the living. When it was to be ascertained, 
an inquest was made and each one told what he remembered 
having seen done in analogous cases. For the men of the 
middle ages, the just was that which had always been done, 
" good custom " ; the unjust was that which was new. Each 

' Procedure by inquest, which gave birth on the one hand to the English jury 
and on the other to the ecclesiastical inquisition, was, up to the end of the 
thirteenth century, only an exceptional expedient. 



64 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

generation strove to imitate the one preceding and only made 
progress unwittingly or by necessity. Out of this respect 
for established things came that heredity characteristic of the 
middle ages, which extended, beyond property, to all acquired 
situations ; the son naturally took the place of his father. 

The Chivalric Code. — In this society, immobilized by cus- 
tom, the habits of the feudal knights were a continual source 
of trouble. Their lives were governed by different and 
mutually contradictory conceptions. The feudal (or rather 
vassalitic) code imposed the duty of respecting the faith sworn 
to one's companions, to one's seigneur, to one's vassal. Faith 
was the law par excellence : the loyal man {legalis) was the 
one who kept his faith; loyalty was fidelity to one's word; the 
honorable man, the worthy knight (^probus), was at the same 
time faithful and brave. There ought to be no quarrel between 
men united by fidelity; and such is the idea in the chansons 
de geste {Renaud de Montauban, where the hero, forced to 
combat with his seigneur, avoids doing him injury; Raoul de 
Cambrai, where Bernier remains faithful to his seigneur, Raoul, 
who has maltreated him). In rigorous logic, if a disagreement 
arose between the vassal and his seigneur, or even between the 
vassals of the same seigneur, they should give over judgment 
to the court of the seigneur, made up of peers of the vassal ; 
and so also say the theorists of feudal law who drew up the 
Assizes of Jerusalem. In the name of faith, the vassal could 
call upon his seigneur to give him justice ; the seigneur could 
summon his man "to come and do law," that is, to appear 
before his court. There, the seigneur left the judging to his 
men; he must "be like a balance, ready to do whatever the 
court decides." Thus every noble would be able to obtain 
justice from his peers and ought to submit himself to their 
justice. 

But, on the other hand, the ideal of the knight was the 
strong and fearless warrior, the Charlemagne of the pseudo- 
Turpin chronicle, who " with a single blow of his sword cleaves 
in two, together with the horse, a mounted warrior dressed in 
full armor from head to foot ' ' ; who ' ' without trouble stretches 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 65 

out four horseshoes at a time ' ' ; who ' ' takes a knight in 
armor upon his hand and lifts him as high as his head ' ' ; who 
' ' eats at his meal the quarter of a sheep or two chickens or a 
goose. ' ' Such a one never draws back or has fear of any- 
body. He was jealous, then, of his reputation: 

" Better be dead than coward be called." 
And in order not to be called coward the knight was 
capable of every violence. His rule was honor (a new word, 
unknown to the ancients), a sentiment made up of pride and 
vanity, which was to dominate the nobility of Europe down to 
the eighteenth century. Honor obliged the knight not to 
endure anything which he thought could possibly be inter- 
preted, by any one in the world, as a retraction. In practice, 
it meant the duty of fighting whosoever opposed him in a right 
to which he pretended. 

Thus honor entered into conflict with faith, and for this 
conflict the feudal code had no solution. It furnished the knot 
of the story in several chansons dc gcste,^ and in real life 
adventures were not lacking like those recounted in an act of 
the eleventh century, in barbaric Latin: the entanglements 
between Hugh of Lusignan and his seigneur, William of 
Acquitaine.^ 

Feudal States. — The feudal regime did not establish between 
inhabitants of the same country any of the relations which seem 
to us indispensable for the constitution of a state. There was 
at that time neither public tax, nor public military service, nor 
public tribunals: nothing but private dues, private tribunals 
(landlords' courts, seigneurs' courts), and service in private 
wars. 

The absolute independence of every landlord rich enough 
to be sufficient unto himself and to his men was the common 
law ; and when the tie of vassalage was loosened the feudal 
seigneur became as sovereign as an allodiary. In this sense 
it was said in the thirteenth century, "every baron is 

^ Girard de Roussillon, Garin le Loherain, Raoul de Cambrai, Renaud de 
Montauban, 

* Historiens de France, vol. XI, p. 534 and fol. 



66 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

sovereign in his barony. ' ' This is why Guizot defined the 
feudal regime as "the confusion of property rights and 
sovereignty. ' ' It would be more exact to say that property 
rights replaced sovereignty fallen into desuetude. A seij;neury 
was a state in miniature, with its army, its custom, its ban 
(ordinance of the seigneur), its tribunal, its gallows ; its people 
called all who were not in it foreigners. 

France, especially in the tenth century, was divided more 
than any other country into sovereignties of this kind. They 
have not been counted, but their number would certainly go 
above ten thousand. The dismemberment was less in Spain, 
where the Christians remained grouped around their leaders in 
war; less in Germany, where the king had kept some authority: 
there the rule was maintained that the ban (criminal justice) 
should not descend to the third hand, that is, below the vassals 
of the king. But in proportion as society became settled and 
civilized, isolation diminished and veritable feudal states were 
formed even in France. 

In every region there was one seigneur more powerful than 
the others, usually the descendant of an ancient Carolingian 
functionary, almost always invested with an official title which 
had become a dignity (a duke or a count), sometimes without 
any title (like the sire of Bourbon, the sire of Beaujeu). He 
was the first personage of the country; he possessed or had 
acquired very extensive domains which brought him a princely 
revenue and made him master of several thousand tenants; 
almost all the territory was held in fief from him, for the other 
seigneurs had finally become his vassals : he thus had as vassals 
almost all the nobles of the province. 

To these powers of landlord and seigneur were added 
powers which were foreign to feudality : the control of the old 
towns, which assured him a revenue and a militia; the protec- 
tion of churches ; and often the regalian rights (rights of the 
crown in regard to the temporalities of vacant bishoprics, 
coinage, Jews, watercourses, treasure-trove). His court was 
the meeting-place for all that country: there the knightly fetes 
were given ; there was held the court of high justice which, in 



USAGES AND GOVERNMENT 67 

some provinces, became a Parlement, the tribunal of accounts, 
which became a Chamber of Accounts, the assembl}' of 
notables, which became the States. 

These territories varied greatly in extent, according to 
geographical conditions and the power of the high seigneur. 
They were not fixed and they did not cease to change: 
increasing by conquests, marriages, inheritances; diminishing 
by divisions. Some disappeared (the duchy of Gascony, the 
county of Vermandois), others were created (Artois). In gen- 
eral they tended rather to increase in size. Finally (toward 
the twelfth century) the great seigneurs decided that their 
domain, like their dignity, should no longer be shared by their 
children, but should pass undivided to the eldest son. Thence- 
forward the feudal states were practically fixed and the frame- 
work of the provinces was formed. 

This formation did not take place in the same way in all 
Europe. In F"rance, where the dismemberment had been 
extreme in the tenth century, the feudal states took shape in 
the eleventh and were completed in the twelfth century ; there 
were about forty of them. A few alone belonged to a bishop; 
in the majority the head was a lay prince ; at first he called 
himself duke or count, then (in the twelfth century) he added 
to this the name of his country (duke of Burgundy, count of 
Anjou, count of Provence). Thus the provinces were formed. 
Each one remained an independent state until the king of 
France annexed it to his domain by replacing the duke or 
count. In England, where the king kept the entire kingdom 
in his direct power, feudal states did not arise. In Spain, 
where the old Christian royalty had been crushed by the 
Mussulmans, the Christian heads of provinces did like that 
prince of Navarre at the end of the ninth century, of whom a 
chronicle says: " He proclaimed himself king in Pampeluna. " 
Every one took the title of king, and there were as many 
kingdoms as there were provinces. In Italy and Germany, 
the dismemberment, combated by the emperor, took place 
later. Feudal states developed in the thirteenth century, in 
forms more , varied than in France: in Italy because of the 



68 THE FEUDAL REGIME 

pope, of the Normans in Sicily, and the strength of the towns; 
in Germany because a part of the lands belonged to princes of 
the church and because among the lay princes the custom of 
dividing the domain among all the sons was longer main- 
tained. But, in every country, the feudal states, once con- 
stituted, actively contributed to the breaking up of what re- 
mained of the feudal regime. 



INDFX 



Advocate ( Voigf), 47, 48 
Aid, 42-44 
Allod, 54, 55 
Armor, 27-29 
Assemblies, judicial, 20 

"Bad customs," 15 
Bail, 45 

Banalities, 17, 18 
Bannerets, 30 
Baron, 30 
Bucklers, 52 

Capitation, 10, 16 

Castles, 34-38 ; life in, 37 

Cens, censive, 14, 16 ; censive ten- 
ure, 54. 55 

Charges, see Banalities, Corvees, 
Prestations, Redevances, 
Rights of Justice ; servile, 10, 11 ; 
on free villains, 14 

Chateaux, see Castles. 

Chevalier, 27 
^ Children, in the feudal regime, 
44-46 

Chevauchce, 42 

Chivalry, 32-34 ; the chivalric code, 
64, 65 

Clergy, in the feudal regime, 46 

Corvees, 21 

Counsel, 44 

Credit, right of, 21 

Custom, 63, 64 

Dienstmannen, 48, 49, 52 
Domains, 3-7 
Donjons, 34-38 
Duel, 62 



Estage, 42 
Exercitus, 21 

Exploitation, seigneurial, 14-31 ; 
origin, 15 ; example. 24 

Fealty, act of, 40 

Feudal hierarchy, 52 

Feudal obligations, 41-44 

Feudal rf'gime, definition, I ; chil- 
dren in, 44-46 ; clergy in, 46 ; 
women in, 44-46 

Feudal relations, complication of, 
50-53 

Feudal states, 65-68 

Fidelity, see Fealty 

Fief, 40, 41 ; investiture of, 40 ; ob- 
ligations connected with, 41-44 ; 
fief tenure, 54, 55 

Gite, right of, 44 

Holdings, of tenants, 3-9 ; distribu- 
tion, 8, 9 
I Homage, 39, 41, 42, 50, 51. 52, 53 

! Inheritance, law of, 55, 56 
Intendant, 22, 23 

Judgment of God, 61 
Justice, 59-61 ; high and low, 18, 
19 ; rights of, 18-20 

Knight, 27, 30, 31 

Manor-houses, 37 
Manumission, 12, 14 
Marriage, right of, 10, ii 
Mill, banal, 18 



70 



INDEX. 



Minis teriales, 48, 49 
Mortmain, 10, 1 1 

Nobles 27 ff.; grades, 29-31 

Ordeal, 61 

Ost, 42 

Oven, banal, 18 

Peace of God, 58 

Peace of the king, 58, 59 

Peasants, 3-26 

Penalties, 62, 63 

Population, rural, 9 

Prevot, see Provost 

Press, banal, 18 

Prestations, 20, 21 

Private warfare, 56, 58, 59 

Provost, 23 

Pursuit, right of, 11, 12 

Rachai, 43 

Redemption taxes, 16, 17 
Redevances, 16-20 
Relief, 43 
Reserve, 3 



Seigneur, or sire, 30 

Seigneurial exploitation, see Ex- 
ploitation 

Seigneurial regime, characteristics, 
23-26 

Seizure, right of, 20 

Serfs, 9-13 

Service, of vassals, 42-44 

Squires, 29, 31, 32, i-^, 34 

Taille, 16 

Tenures, of land, 54, 55 

Tourneys, 57 

Truce of God, 58 

Valets, 29 

Vassal, 38-44 ; obligations of, 41- 

44. 
Vidame, 48 
Village, 7-9 
Villains, 8, 9; free, 13, 14 

Ward, of minors, 45 
Wars, 56-58 

Women, in the feudal regime, 44 - 
46 



Mi. 



W 



